


the place between places

by spacenarwhal



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hostage Situations, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2018-12-05 19:02:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 98,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: The soldier standing in front her is not familiar. He’s thin and tall and haggard looking but Jyn thinks he can’t be too much older than her despite the weariness of his features. He’s as drenched as she is, if not more, his wet hair still dripping into his eyes. Jyn stares up at him, her clenched jaw aches. She can’t find her voice. The soldier clears his throat, raises a hand. There’s something clenched in it. He offers it to her. “In case you’re cold.” He says. His voice is gentle but the set of his mouth gives him away, the shadow of awkwardness that lingers under each carefully enunciated word. Jyn doesn’t help him, doesn’t reach for the jacket in his hand. She just keeps staring.[Or: After years held hostage by the Empire, Jyn is rescued after a rebel attack.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy! If you're following this on tumblr you'll recognize most of this but there have been a view minor changes and additions made. But these chapters seem to just be getting longer so I decided to post them over here proper like. 
> 
> Once again, all credit goes to [@southsidestory who created a lovely moodboard](http://the-space-narwhal.tumblr.com/post/162950166833/southsidestory-i-feel-like-a-part-of-my-soul#tumblr_notes) with the fic prompt that inspired this story.

This is how she meets him:

She is on a ship. It is small and crowded and dingy, nothing like the Imperial ship that brought her and Papa to Eadu years and years ago (Jyn could tell you the exact count in standard days, in invisible tally marks lining the back of her eyelids where she can still see her mother crumbling into the reedy grass on Lah’mu). There are rebel soldiers aboard, the ones who rescued her before the facility went up in smoke and fire but none of them have spoken a word since Jyn went quiet. 

She’s on a ship and Papa is dead. 

Jyn stares down at her lap, clasps her hands over the still soaked knees of her skirt. Krennic had requested she dress herself appropriately for the event, because he still delights in this game, in reminding her and Papa of all the ways he controls them. There’s a tear in the heavy woolen fabric now, all waterlogged and soot-stained, and the part of Jyn that’s always looked for ways to be a nuisance to Orson Krennic is pleased to see it, to think of credits and time wasted, his facility in ruins before he could announce whatever victory he had to lord over them.

Jyn is free and Papa is dead.

(“Whatever I do, I do it to protect you.”)

She blinks her vision clear but the truth remains the same. Jyn is on a ship and her father isn’t. Her father is back on the platform on Eadu, lying among the smoking ruins of the facility that had been their prison for eight years. 

(“I can’t leave him.” She cries, struggling against the iron grip of the droid pulling her away. “I can’t—” but she does, she does.)

“Excuse me.” The voice catches her unawares, makes Jyn look up from her stained knees. She wipes at her face with impatient fingers.

The soldier standing in front her is not familiar. He’s thin and tall and haggard looking but Jyn thinks he can’t be too much older than her despite the weariness of his features. He’s as drenched as she is, if not more, his wet hair still dripping into his eyes. Jyn stares up at him, her clenched jaw aches. She can’t find her voice. The soldier clears his throat, raises a hand. There’s something clenched in it. He offers it to her. “In case you’re cold.” He says. His voice is gentle but the set of his mouth gives him away, the shadow of awkwardness that lingers under each carefully enunciated word. Jyn doesn’t help him, doesn’t reach for the jacket in his hand. She just keeps staring. 

The soldier doesn’t frown at her attention. He nods, a small jerk of his chin and then he steps towards Jyn slowly. He motions towards the empty seat at her hip, leaves the jacket there. “Just in case.” He says easily, takes a smooth step back as though Jyn were an animal that might set off into a rampage without warning. Her hands tighten on her knees. There’s something feral twisting in her gut. Maybe he’s right to be cautious.

Other soldiers must be staring. Jyn imagines she can feel their eyes on her. 

“I’m—” He stops, hands clasped behind his back. His narrow shoulders are tense. “I’m sorry about your father.” He says and Jyn’s eyes jump, lock on his. His lean face is stiff, but his eyes. His eyes are bottomless, dark as ravines lying in wait off the ledges of steep mountains. They make Jyn want to jump.

Jyn tightens her grip, twists her hands into claws. Beneath her nails the fabric stretches tight, wrinkles further. He doesn’t wait for her to respond, turns his back with only a lingering look and then retreats to the huddled mass of other soldiers, leaves her with a jacket and her grief.

-

When she sees him again it’s in the make shift mess on what passes for the rebel base. Their eyes meet. He looks away first. Jyn takes a seat at the nearly empty table, pokes at her food. Jyn has been on world for a standard week at least and no one has come for her. TIE fighters have not ripped the sky to pieces, Krennic’s black-helmed death troopers haven’t appeared to her shoot her down. 

No one will tell her what planet they’re on, or what system they’ve traveled to. They say only that they are rebels, their sole interest is in defeating the Empire. They say Jyn is free. They say her father is dead. Neither of them feel quite true.

She has been in and out of interviews—interrogations—for days now. These rebels want to know what she knows. They want to know everything about the facility on Eadu. They want to know about her father’s work. 

“Maybe you ought to have thought about that before you blew him up.” Jyn finally snapped after countless hours in a too-small room, staring down grim-faced generals. In her head, beneath the bitterness and anger, is the thought that it’s Papa they ought to have saved, Papa who could best tell them everything they want to know.

”I’m sorry for what we’ve done to you.” A pale faced woman in regal robes formally told Jyn hours after she arrived here, but Jyn doesn’t want apologies. (“I’m sorry about your father.”) Not from anyone. 

All at once she’s up, leaving behind her tray of veg-meat in thin broth, stumbling across the mess hall until she’s standing across the soldier from the ship. There’s a single second of surprise so brief Jyn thinks she’s imagined it, some trick of the light, because when she looks at him, really looks, his face is at ease. There’s an unsettling flatness to his eyes here that wasn’t there before, like a door’s been slammed shut, but Jyn isn’t here to talk. Instead she shrugs her borrowed jacket off her shoulders, throws it down on the tabletop. She dressed in soldiers’ fatigues now, tan and loose fitting, cuffed over her boots twice. She feels small without the jacket to hide inside but she stands up straight, like her mother taught her to, juts her chin outward and daring.

That gets a reaction, a miniscule twitch of his mouth, eyes softening with amusement that sets Jyn’s blood boiling. 

Her life has been a hodgepodge, her earliest memories at odds with what came after, safe houses and seclusion, the quiet of Lah’mu that was shattered the day they were found, the never-quiet of the facility on Eadu. For eight years she has lived overlooked and ignored when she wasn’t of use to anyone’s ploys, when she couldn’t be dragged out to force her father’s compliance. Jyn has been invisible, or else treated like a pet by Imperials who honestly believed they were better people for showing a child some scrap of kindness while holding her captive. She won’t be that again.

Jyn is free—everyone says as much, use words like _rescued_ and _liberated_ even if they hold Jyn in tiny rooms and ask her endless questions about things she’ll never trust them with—and her father is dead and she doesn’t have anything left to lose. 

-

They’re sitting side by side on a sagging cot in an overly bright room. There’s beeping from somewhere behind the cloth partition that divides the room in two. Jyn’s hand is throbbing. They’ve given her a cooling pack to place over it and said she was lucky not to have broken anything. She isn’t sure if they mean her fingers or the other guy’s face. 

The cool blank fury from the mess hall fades a little more the longer she sits there as the reality of what she’s done starts to sink in with each quick merciless stabs of panic. She hasn’t cooperated and now she’s outright attacked a rebel officer. Whatever benevolence compelled them to take her off Eadu will surely be forgotten now. She’s no better off than she was before, at the mercy of someone else’s whims. Her mind races.

From time to time troopers stationed on Eadu would try to scare her with talk of wild Outer Rim planets, of pirates and scavengers and outlaws. “Good thing you’re safe here Jynnie.” The more familiar ones would say when Jyn was a novelty still, a little girl in twin braids and pretty dresses.

Now she wonders if the rebellion will at least give her a choice of planet to choose from when they send her packing. 

She flexes her fingers. “Don’t,” says the soldier sitting beside her. His own cooling back is resting on his lap. The side of his face where she managed to strike him is still red.

Jyn scowls, looks back at her hand. An apology itches in her throat but she refuses to let it wrestle free. She’s not even sorry about her hand. She’d do it again if she had the chance, she knows she would.

“Next time place your thumb against the knuckle of your index finger.” He holds up his own hand to demonstrate, his thumb crossed diagonally across over fingers at an upward angle. “And don’t aim so high. Strike at your opponent’s throat or mouth if you’re aiming for the head. You won’t overextend yourself as much and it’ll hurt them more.”

Jyn’s head snaps up and she stares at him. Hard. “Sorry, are you giving me tips on how to punch you better?”

He grins a little at that, “It’ll lessen your chances of hurting yourself is all.”

Jyn looks back at her hand. “My apologies, no one was really interested in teaching me how to win a fight on Eadu.” 

He shifts, the cot beneath them protests. Where is that blasted droid that told them to wait here, Jyn wonders looking up again impatiently. 

“I could teach you.” He says, and against her arm she feels what she thinks must have been a shrug. “So long as you promise not to use my face for practice.” 

Jyn scoffs, stares down at her scuffed boots, the rolled legs of her trousers. The only thing left to her is the necklace clasped around her neck and even that is still more her mother’s than her own. 

“Don’t think I’ll be around long enough for lessons.” She answers. There’s more honesty to the answer than she intended, a wavering note that speaks to the worry collecting in Jyn’s belly. She doesn’t know what she’ll do, how she’ll survive once she’s left on her own. 

“Are you leaving?” He asks, and it’s the actual curiosity in his voice that draws her gaze back up. 

“What else?” Jyn answers, face growing warm as the worry in her mounts, “I don’t—I don’t know anything they want to know—” Those were Papa’s secrets, and if Papa is gone maybe they should go with him, left behind on Eadu with the rain and black smoke and all that was left of Jyn’s home, “—and now this,” she motions between them with her uninjured hand, “I don’t think anyone will be asking me to stay.”

He doesn’t say anything, but Jyn gets the vague feeling that she’s being studied, taken part bit by bit. She doesn’t like it, wishes she could take it all back and keep quiet. 

“I am.” He says, and he offers her his hand like he offered her the jacket back aboard the ship. Jyn’s eyes widen incredulously, her mouth hardens with disbelief. “I don’t think that’s for you to decide.”

He doesn’t withdraw his hand. “I’m asking anyway.”

Jyn’s eyes narrow, but her heart is sprinting inside her chest, distrust and worry clawing away inside her. It was rebel bombs that killed her father. But it was also a rebel ship that carried her away. It’s a rebel soldier offering her his hand. 

She thinks of stormtroopers shooting her mother and stormtroopers offering her a sweet cake on her name day while her father worked away behind the closed doors of his lab. You can’t trust anyone, Jyn knows that, Jyn believes that. 

She doesn’t know what to do. She needs time. She takes his hand, it feels awkward using her left hand. “Thank you.”

He nods, his fingers rough around hers, his palm cool. “You deserved better.” He says, words burnished with conviction and Jyn almost adverts her eyes, something hot lodging in her throat. Papa deserved better. Mama deserved better. Jyn could have had better if they had only—

“What’s your name?” Jyn asks, because he’s probably the only person who’s spoken to her outside an interrogation room and the only one whose failed to introduce himself. 

“Cassian Andor.” He answers, looking her in the eye as he squeezes her hand. “Welcome to the Rebellion.” 

-

Cassian proves a man of his word. As soon as her hand is healed he teaches her how to throw a proper punch. He sticks around long after Jyn would have thought he’d lose whatever interest it was he had in her, takes meals with her and shows her around as much of the base as he’s allowed. He formally introduces her to the KX unit Jyn remembers meeting on Eadu, a reprogramed security droid that goes by K-2SO. “He means well.” Cassian explains the first time Jyn butts heads with the blasted thing, and Jyn snaps that Cassian could have worked on the things personality a little while longer when he was tinkering with its coding. He’s still there after Jyn is officially assigned to report to a rebel officer, Amadna Makkal, a round-faced woman with short grey hair and steel for eyes, who doles out Jyn’s weekly tasks. 

He’s a smart man, adept with the innards of ships and handy under navcoms and the insides of droids, with a dry sense of humor that catches her by surprise. The first time he makes her laugh Jyn doesn’t even notice it until the moment’s passed, hours later while she’s buried in a supply room cataloging inventory. She can’t remember the last times she laughed, not even if it was with Papa. She presses her fisted fingers against her lips to keep from making a sound at the hot press of guilt that rises in her throat. 

He comes and goes, flying parties out and ferrying them back to base apparently but Cassian has remained more or less constant. He’s as close to familiar as Jyn knows nowadays. In five months he’s taught her how to throw a punch just like he promised, but he’s also helped her learn other tasks to occupy her time, taught her how to perform inventory checks, how to run diagnostics on droids, even do some simple maintenance work around the base.

(“Aren’t you a jack of all trades?” Jyn asks, mildly amused by his assortment of skillsets, and Cassian just shrugs, almost bashful. “This is how I started out.” He says, only to leave Jyn puzzling over a soldier who can’t be too much older than herself. She wants to ask, questions accumulating on the tip of her tongue, if the rebels took him in as well or if he was born in to this by chance. He doesn’t mention parents and Jyn knows better than to ask, keeps quiet for fear of jostling the still raging wound she carries inside herself. ) 

The other rebels aren’t necessarily unfriendly but Jyn feels their eyes on her, their curiosity. She’s as much an oddity here as she was on Eadu, out of place and awkward. There are more than a few people in power who wanted to send her away, worried she might be a liability, her loyalties questioned since her usefulness proved minimal in their eyes. But Jyn asked to stay and Cassian has enough credibility to his name to lend her support and now five months later she’s still here, still right here, learning everything she can to fill the emptiness Krennic worked so hard to make in her for eight long years.

She’s been at the base for almost five months the first time he leaves for longer than a handful of days. “You don’t know when you’ll be back?” she echoes, trying to ignore whatever it is prickling at the base of her spine. She contorts her frown into a thin pressed line, hopes she can pass apprehension off as something less telling. 

Five months on base and he’s the closest thing she has to a friend here. 

Krennic had called her a hindrance more than once, had outright called her a burden while escorting her back to her room after a long silent dinner shared with him and Papa. Jyn had been twelve at the time, sullen and sharp, resentful of every aspect of her life but especially of having to share her father’s time when she already saw him so little. “You mustn’t give him reason to lash out at you.” Papa had warned her time and time again, but the man in white was smiling down at her and calling Jyn a burden to her father, an inconvenience that had cost her parents their lives. She’d wanted to cry and she’d wanted to scream but there was no way of doing either without hurting herself more than Krennic so she settled for biting his hand. She’d been confined to her room for weeks afterward but the metallic sting of his blood on the back of her teeth faded slowly, kept her company in her solitude. She’d never doubted it had been worth it, not even when Papa had reprimanded her for her rashness. “I’m alone anyhow.” Jyn told him before returning to her room, angry and heartbroken.

Staring at Cassian now, with his pack slung over his shoulders, it’s that kind of loneliness staring back at her.

Cassian nods, looks torn between apologetic and resigned. “You’ll keep reporting to Makkal.” He says, as though that is the part of all this that worries Jyn most. 

She doesn’t know what to say and he can’t tell her any more. She doesn’t have clearance. She doesn’t have any rank at all.

“Well.” Jyn says sharply, sharper than she means. She doesn’t really think she’s angry. Not at him. “Have a good trip.”

Cassian frowns and Jyn doesn’t think he meant to do that either, his face smoothing out almost instantly into something so courteous it borders on empty. “Take care Jyn.”

And then he leaves.

Jyn expects him to look back, at least once, but she doesn’t wait around to see if he does. She doesn’t want to be disappointed if he doesn’t. She’s had enough disappointment to last her the rest of her life, she doesn’t need to add to it.

-

Makkal is a demanding taskmaster but she’s patient and fair, trusts Jyn’s intuition and encourages her questions. 

When Cassian’s been gone almost three weeks she asks Jyn if she’s ever fired a blaster. “Do you want to learn?” she asks when Jyn shakes her head. 

She wonders if this is a test, if she’s meant to say no. But the memory of blaster fire echoes in her brain—her mother falls and Jyn runs, her father lies still in the rain and Jyn is pulled away—and she nods.

The last thing anyone on Eadu wanted was for either her or her father to get their hands on a weapon. The most Jyn ever learned was how to climb, though without any real method, self-taught as she was. There was a wall of cragged rock making up one the back walls of a hangar at the facility. When Jyn was thirteen she’d challenged herself to climb it, just to see if she could. It was a challenge and a thrill, scrapping her palms raw on the rock as she climbed and climbed and climbed. She’d never told Papa about it, lied the few times he ever saw her hands a mess. That had been her secret to keep from him, something to horde away and turn over inside herself like a treasure.

By the time Cassian’s been gone five weeks Jyn can name every part of the pistol Makkal puts in her hands, she can take it apart and reassemble it with growing ease, fingers growing nimble with familiarity. 

At the eight week mark Jyn’s learned to prepare for the recoil and gets used to the burnt scent of blaster discharge that clings to her hands after practice, teaches herself to brace for the memory of her mother disappear into the grass and the recollection of smoke in the air, fires burning and bombs falling and her father’s still form lying on the rain slick platform. Her feet feel lighter than ever before as she thinks of running towards battles rather than away from them.

Makkal whoops the first time Jyn actually hits her target, congratulates her on the scorched mark Jyn’s shot leaves in its wake. Jyn hands are shaking but she grins back, exhilarated, proud.

(She thinks, “I will show Cassian.” Her resentment at being left behind softened by her excitement at having something to share.)

He’s gone two months the first she asks about him. In retrospect she’ll be sure whether it’s a mistake or not. “Is he always gone this long?” Jyn asks Makkal, wiping sweat off her brow. Makkal has decided to teach her some basic self-defense to keep the punch Cassian taught her company. Jyn’s body is sore and achy, but her heart is still sprinting inside her chest, singing in her limbs. 

Makkal studies her, takes a drink from her canteen before offering it to Jyn for sip. “Andor? Sometimes, I think. Spies are hard to keep track of. They’re always slipping in and out.“ 

That stops Jyn short. Something cold splashes in the bottom of her stomach, rises up her throat.

”I thought he was a pilot.” She says weakly, forcing her voice loose.

Makkal shrugs, unbothered. “A good one too. But he’s been under Draven’s tutelage long enough now that I’m not surprised Intelligence swept him up when they did. The real miracle is they didn’t come in sooner. But I suppose the council wouldn’t stand for it, young as he is.” Makkal frowns, points a stern finger at Jyn. “Which is why these sessions are purely recreational, do you understand Erso. I’m not going in front of council because you decide you’re ready to play soldier until someone at the top gives go the green light, are we clear?” 

Jyn nods, mind fumbling into knots, trying to make sense of everything Makkal’s said. The other woman is still talking, but now she’s mostly mumbling under her breath. “Ridiculous to think they expect you to not even know how to defend yourself. Times like these, life you’ve had. Person needs to know to fight for themselves if nothing else.” She tosses her canteen back off to the side. “Alright, ready to go again?”

Jyn hits the mat hard, but she hardly feels it. She doesn’t really feel anything for the rest of the day.

-

She doesn’t mean to keep track but she can’t seem to stop herself, sees him again and knows almost instinctually that it has been thirteen weeks since she last saw him. He doesn’t look all that different to her, more tired maybe, shoulders stiff and face pinched. His hair is dirty. That horrible shadow of a KX unit is trailing along beside him as he cuts across the hangar. Jyn steps back. She doesn’t run but her steps are quick, her strides clipped short as she travels back the way she just came. She thinks she hears him call her name. She doesn’t look back.

_Spy._

The word loops over itself inside her head.

-

He doesn’t seek her out and there’s a part of her that sags with relief, breathes out and deflates just a little, feels less ready to burst into something messy and uncontrollable.

He doesn’t seek her out and there’s a part of her that takes it as an admission of guilt, that goes brittle and sharp, that cuts into her while she carries on with her days. He doesn’t seek her out and she doesn’t know if that means he knows what she knows now. He must, she tells herself when she lies awake at night, listening to the maddening rustle of the barracks around her. He must know. 

Papa always warned her that the Empire had eyes and ears everywhere and Jyn was stupid to think the Rebellion would be an different, any better. They killed her father and left him behind on that platform and took Jyn as a kind of consolation prize, put a spy on her to see what she might know, what she’d let slip given time and the illusion of friendship.

(She feels, somewhere inside her she’s fought long to ignore, like the child she was when they first arrived on Eadu, her hair in plaits and her mother’s crystal clutched in her palm, when she first stared down the locked doors of her father’s lab and couldn’t understand why he was in there while she waited outside. Why they couldn’t be together. “Everything I do, I do it to protect you.” And Jyn didn’t understand, doesn’t understand, will never understand the way he needed her to, but the regret of those years wasted on sullen silences and stony stares press on her ribs and refuse to let her breathe all the same.) 

He doesn’t seek her out and Jyn minds her distance. The loneliness is nothing new. 

-

Jyn’s pack is heavy, knocks against her back as she runs. It’s hard to keep quiet, fear chokes the air in her lungs, stitches her ribs tight around every breath. In her head she sees Mama fall over and over again, but Jyn is too scared to even cry. Her feet stick in the muddy soil and Jyn slips, falls hard under the weight of her pack and she picks herself up with skinned palms, pushes herself to standing and keeps running because Mama and Papa said she must not stop. 

The cave looms within sight and Jyn pushes her legs to run faster, her heart pumps so hard she thinks it’ll explode, thinks she’ll die for lack of air–Mama lifts her arm and she falls, disappears into the tall grass like she was never there at all–but she doesn’t. Jyn reaches the mouth of the cave and slips into the damp darkness within, back, back finds the hatch Mama and Papa made to keep them all safe. She’s never been down there alone, the dark deeper and darker and colder than before now that it's just Jyn crawling down the ladder.

Some nights she dreams that it starts to rain, water trickling down, dripping onto Jyn, pooling at the bottom of the hatch and soaking her feet. She worries about drowning.

In other dreams Mama comes for her, climbs down the ladder like they practiced and they sit together in the dark. In others a stranger comes, opens the hatch and lets the rain in, followed by sunlight, and he offers her his hand and lifts her out of the dark. Jyn never sees his face.

Some nights Jyn dreams no one ever finds her and she waits there forever, lantern extinguished in her shaking hands.

(“We found something, sir.” And the hatch lifts, death faces peering down at her and Jyn doesn’t cry, she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t cry–)

-

She’s stabbing at whatever it is on her tray today—it isn’t recognizable to her as food but it must be edible since everyone around her is eating it—when a shadow falls over her. When she looks up its to the sight of an Imperial security droid, dull grey metal chassis towering over her like a watchtower. It’s optic sensors dim and brighten in a way that makes Jyn aware that she’s been scrutinized and she hunches over her tray, elbows pressing down hard into the table top. 

It’s been three weeks since Cassian’s returned to base. If he’s left and come again Jyn doesn’t care to know.

“Can I help you?” She snaps before shoving food into her mouth. It’s bland and soft and lukewarm. She forces herself to swallow.

“Unlikely.” K-2SO answers, staring down at her. Jyn lets her spoon fall back onto her tray with a rattle. She pushes her tray away, jumps to her feet so forcefully the seat beneath her scrapes against the floor.

“You can stay the hell away from me.” She grinds out, picking up her tray with stiff fingers. Her knuckles whiten as she tightens her grip on the metal edges. “And tell him to do the same. If I see him I—”

“I am not a message courier.” The droid interjects, cutting her off.

“Whatever bolt bag.” Jyn says turning on her heel. She doesn’t look around to see if he’s nearby. 

-

“I didn’t tell him to talk to you.” Those are the first words out of Cassian’s mouth when he finds her. Jyn stares down at the box of ration bars she’s been counting (twenty-four. That’s sixteen less than they’re supposed to have received per box. Jyn notes that in her datapad. She remembers the nearly endless resources of the facility on Eadu, the gleaming armor of the troopers, the crisp line of the officers’ uniforms, the equipment and medicine and food. Jyn doesn’t know what hope there is for the galaxy when the rebels can’t even secure full orders of supplies).

“I don’t care.” Jyn answers, closing the box. She powers off her datapad and tosses it onto a nearby shelf. She needs to get out of here.

Cassian doesn’t move, standing directly in her way without looking her in the eye. He looks at his boots, at Jyn’s boots, at the wall over her shoulder. It just serves to make her angry. Angrier.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Jyn asks, anger cutting her tongue loose when moments ago she wanted nothing more than to leave. But she’s been holding the question inside her since Makkal told her, wondering if it would make a difference to hear it from him. Jyn tries her hardest to keep her voice level. It pitches and breaks, cracks on the back of her teeth. Cassian looks up, his dark eyes heavy.

“There really isn’t anything to tell.” Cassian answers, calm and smooth-faced. Jyn crosses her arms, bites her mouth to keep from snarling.

“You’re a spy.” She spits, the word hurts inside her mouth, her chest, her head. “Aren’t you?” He doesn’t bother denying it. “What—you—did you get told to stick close? Is that why you hung around? Am I part of an assignment?”

She’s raked over every single conversation, every word they’ve shared, searched and searched for anything she might have given away. (Papa guarded his secrets so carefully and what he told Jyn was so hard won, whispered between them under the watchful eyes of other scientists and armed guards, men and women who would turn on them for the chance of gaining greater favor. Jyn can’t have failed him now. Not after everything.)

Cassian’s face shifts, darkens, mouth crumbling as though Jyn’s force fed him something foul. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He says, voice a rasp in the quiet stock room.

“You think I don’t know what this is?” Her heart rams up against her ribs, throbs and throbs in her throat, her fingertips. “You’re not the first.” (Soft-spoken officers who offered her smiles but their eyes were all the same, cold and uncaring.) “I’m tired of being used.”

Cassian’s mouth tightens at the corners, his eyes blaze. “There’s no conspiracy here Jyn.”

“Really?” Jyn barks, disbelief makes her voice sharp. “Then why didn’t you tell me? Why did you hide it?”

He runs a hand through his hair, jerky and impatient. “Would have spoken to me if I had? Would you have ever trusted me?”

Jyn squeezes her hand into a fist, takes a step back. That’s what hurts the most isn’t it? That she trusted him. That she was stupid enough to trust him.

“Do you _trust_ me?” She asks, chin raised. Her eyes are stinging and she wills herself not to cry. Mama always asked her not to cry if she could help it. Cassian stares at her, searches her face and Jyn wants to believe he isn’t just looking for a something to exploit. “When I tell you that I don’t know anything about my father’s work, do _you_ believe me?”

They stare at each other in near silence, Jyn’s chest tight with shame and regret. Cassian looks at her hands, steps forward. She could take a swing at him and make it hurt this time.

“I do,” he says, looks her straight in the eye. “I believe you Jyn.”

There are so many things Jyn should do: she should hit him. She should scream. She should push him out of her way. She should pack her measly belongings and run, stow away on a ship and go wherever it takes her. Take her life as her own at long last without a keeper breathing down her neck.

(Jyn’s whole life has been shaped by her parents’ choices, her father’s secrets, but they’re both dead now. Isn’t it time their choices died with them?)

There are so many things Jyn should do but only one she wants.

She wants to believe him.

She isn’t sure she does.

“You don’t even know me.” She answers, confusion washing over her. She feels her loneliness as heavily here as she did on Eadu, cut off and disconnected from the rest of the galaxy. She feels like her final bridge has been set aflame in front of her eyes and marvels to know that she had one left. She thought it had all burned with Papa.

“I’d like to.” Cassian says, standing still, voice so sincere it snares the air in Jyn’s lungs so tight it makes her chest ache. When Jyn looks at his face again he’s looking down at the box of ration bars, eyebrows furrowing downward. He says it like he’s confession something bigger and grander, something that could ruin an empire, bring a star system to its end.

It’s possible, she realizes, that she isn’t the only one willing to believe a half-truth against all better judgment.

Jyn doesn’t know what to make of it.

“I don’t like being lied to.” Jyn says finally, crossing her arms over her chest. The words are lumpy on her tongue.

“I never lied.” Cassian protests stubbornly and she scowls, his truth a technicality at best. He shrugs, uncomfortable. He mirrors her posture, back straight but his arms crossed defensively over his chest. “I don’t like lying.” He says finally, looking oddly helpless, as young as Jyn feels and just as lost.

“So don’t.” Jyn bites out, meeting his stare head on. Cassian’s shoulders stiffen, fall, his mouth twists.

”Is the world really so simple for you?” He asks, incredulous. “Or do you only wish it were?”

Jyn’s eyes sting. She worries at her ragged cuticles until her fingers sting. Blood beads at the base of her thumb nail. Neither. Both. There’s no good answer. “Is that your best attempt at an apology?” She asks, anger still bubbling in her throat but something else lashing at her from behind her lungs. She missed him. She missed him. She missed him. He’s here. 

Cassian blinks, caught off guard. His mouth twitches into a shadow of a grin. “I don’t have much practice.” 

Jyn pulls back a jagged piece of skin, resists the urge to bite it loose with her teeth. “You’re in luck then. I don’t either.”

Cassian’s lips don’t move but his eyes lighten, his stance loses some of its uncompromising rigidity. “I am sorry.” He says finally, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

No one does, Jyn thinks, forcing her shoulders to relax, dropping her arms to her sides. It’s the sort of thing that just seems to happen. 

“I can shoot you now.” She says instead, flashing him a hard grin. It’s only partially a joke and she thinks they both know it.

Cassian holds up his hands, palms facing her in mock surrender. “I’ve heard.” He says, and that’s an apology in its own right, for being away. Oddly enough, it isn’t one Jyn thinks he owes her anymore. She’s glad to have it all the same. “I’d like to see a demonstration. So long as I’m not your target.”

“Can’t make any promises.” Jyn says drily. Neither of them laugh, but the air is easier to breath, the space less confining. He stays to help her count the rest of the rations. 


	2. Chapter 2

She sits across from him in the mess hall a few days after their conversation in the stock room and they stare at one another for a split second before carrying on with breakfast. They don’t say anything for the rest of their meal.

Their silences soften slowly, ease back into something like what they had before. There's a note of caution to them reminiscent to how they started, Jyn suspicious and Cassian careful like he knows she'll spook. 

He's a spy and she can’t let herself forget that, he’s a spy, the threat of it pressing down on her stomach whenever she catches herself relaxing—an enemy in plain sight, ears and eyes on the lookout for anything that might be used against her, against Papa—but he's her friend too, or as close to as Jyn's known in her life, and she’s reluctant to let him go entirely.

(She reminds herself that this rebellion isn’t her life just like the Empire wasn’t her life. These people aren’t hers. Jyn means nothing to them, so she can’t let any of them mean anything to her. She reminds herself that she’s lived her life in one cage or another, that staying here is a matter of survival. Papa is dead and Jyn is alive. She means to remain alive.)

-

One month folds into the next and then another, trickle down like rain seeping through a roof until a full year has collected like a puddle at her feet. 

Jyn changes. Cassian stays. She doesn’t know which she finds more surprising.

Jyn can shoot a blaster with precision now but isn’t assigned her own, can knock an opponent off their feet in the sparring ring but isn’t allowed to train with new recruits, practices after hours or in the early morning with Makkal or Cassian or the occasional random officer that gets stationed on base and doesn’t know they’re not meant to engage. 

She knows the ins and outs of the base but has no rank, no clearance, isn’t told anything beyond the most perfunctory. 

Every now and again she’s still brought into a meeting room full of generals and commanders, still asked a dozen roundabout questions that all lead back to Eadu and her father’s work. Jyn still shakes her head, quiet with fury, wishes they would just let her bury her memories of Eadu away, somewhere deep inside her, deeper and farther than the place where she safe guards memories of Mama and Papa, of Lah’mu, of those grey-green days spent playing in the surf. 

“Does any of this look familiar to you?” General Draven asks her for what feels like the millionth time in the year Jyn’s been on base. There are large swathes of redacted data in the schematics on display across the screen and Jyn blinks at it as though there were actually anything to consider. “No sir.” She says, a mimicry of a perfect soldier. Draven’s eyes narrow. A year later and he still doesn’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth.

Cassian is always quiet after those meetings, eyes troubled and mouth turned downward in a tight frown, and she can’t help but wonder if he knew about the ambush but didn’t tell her. She never asks. Jyn knows whatever he feels for her doesn’t compared to his loyalty to his cause, she doesn’t delude herself otherwise. They’ve both drawn their lines in the sand, she can’t resent him for not crossing his when she knows where she stands behind her own. 

Today she’s dismissed and he appears seemingly out of thin air moments after she’s left the meeting room, spills out of the shadows like the mere thought of him has conjured him. She wonders if that’s a skill nature-born or one he’s cultivated by necessity.

“Everything alright?” he asks, bracing his hands behind his back. Just like that he shifts, solidifies, turns from fog and silence into flesh and bone, orderly and collected in a way Jyn now understands isn’t just for show.

Jyn nods, curt, tired, her spine stiff from more than an hour of sitting ramrod straight. She rolls her shoulders, tries to work her muscles loose. Cassian gives her a sidelong glance, she knows he does, so Jyn lets her arms swing at her sides, knuckles knocking into his thigh. She isn’t a soldier, as everyone seems keen to remind her, allows herself to take up space, practice frivolity in her movements. Cassian’s jaw ticks and he lets his own arms fall loose, his wrist brushes her hand, once, twice. Brief and incidental. Jyn imagines taking his hand in hers as they walk, wonders what _that_ would feel like, heart sprinting at the thought. She curls her fingers inward until her nails dig into her palm and keeps walking forward. 

-

Later she’ll know the full story. That’s the way of things, the piece fall into place long after the picture’s been revealed in full. Later she’ll be told the details. An imperial scout on the outskirts of the system, activity detected by a communications officer in the dead of night. A transmission intercepted, decoded. A countdown set in motion.

After a year and a handful of spare weeks Jyn wakes in the middle of the night to the sudden wailing, sits up on her bedroll as the barrack lights snap to full power. She’s momentarily blinded, hunches over to shield her eyes. Around her others groan, hiss, still half-asleep beneath their own thin blankets, while others are already up, scrabbling for gear.

“On your feet Erso, we’re heading out,” snaps the Rodian whose slept two bed rolls over from Jyn’s for as long as she’s been assigned to this barrack. This is the first time she’s talked to Jyn. “Full evac.”

There are drills for this. Protocols. Procedures. Makkal puts Jyn through the paces spontaneously, has beat it into Jyn’s head. She knows what to do, where to go. 

(“Don’t bother with things. Things we can replace. We get the order to evacuate you get yourself to a ship and you get out of here. Understood Erso?” 

(“ _Everything I do, I do it to protect you._ ”)

“Understood, ma’am.” Makkal skewers her with a look and Jyn bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking.)

Jyn pushes herself up, leaves her bedroll on the floor, her blanket in a tangle around her ankles. There’s an inventory list rattling in her head and she hopes General Zyphera has had time to move their supplies shipboard, ammo and rations and medicine. Bedrolls. Blankets. Scratchy and thin. 

She tugs on her boots and doesn’t bother with her laces, around her the room empties, soldiers running to their duties until it’s just Jyn alone.

She doesn’t have much to grab, just the grubby pack that doubles as her pillow, not even half full with spare clothes, a data pad she scavenged from a scrap heap that Cassian helped her get in working order. The din in the hallway intensifies even as Jyn shoulders her pack, even as she steps out the barrack door and rushes into it. She gets swallowed whole by the press of bodies, soldiers pushing forward or rushing past her countercurrent, elbows and knees and stiff lips. 

The hallway splits and the crowd around her fragments, spit her out and Jyn’s head spins, sweat beading icy on her skin and down her back. Black spots flash at the corners of her vision like stars going cold, in stark contrast to the harsh lights flooding every corner of the halls. 

_They’re coming. They’re coming. They’ve found me._

There are sirens bleating somewhere up ahead and people moving everywhere, but Jyn's feet are stuck to the floor, her legs leaden. She can't move. She can't breathe, can't—

Hands squeeze at her shoulders, a face appears in her line of sight. "Jyn." Cassian. Cassian. He looks tired as ever, face wane under the floodlights. He says her name again, voice urgent, demanding attention. It cracks the stillness frosted over within her, a hairline fracture she fumbles to dig her nails into. "Jyn."

She closes her hands around his elbows, grips him tight. She tries to say his name but her tongue won't cooperate, swollen behind her clenched teeth. 

"We have to move." He says, pulling on her shoulders and Jyn tries to nod, wills herself to move, damn it, move, but she can't, panic cold and syrupy-thick in every limb. His hands leave her shoulders and she feels anchorless without them, but they reappear, palms warm against the sides of her face. Cassian tilts her face upward, and when he speaks his voice is firm but his hands are gentle. He presses his thumbs against her cold cheeks. "Jyn. Let’s go."

"I won't go back." She wheezes, the words scald on the way out. "I won't." (Krennic, troopers encased in their smooth faceless armor. Mama falling, Papa lying dead. A room with four walls and so much silence, quiet turning to stone inside Jyn's heart). 

Cassian shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. "You're not going back. You're going on a transport. Makkal is waiting for you. It's just like the drills, you understand."

"What about you?" She asks, bodies pushing around them, frenzy intensifying, and even in her panic she knows they're running out of time. They’re coming. They’re coming.

"I've got things to finish here. But I'll be right behind you. I'll find you at the rendezvous point."

"Cassian," K-2's voice crackles over a comm, "General Draven has noticed your absence." 

Cassian bites back a frustrated sound, one hand dropping away from Jyn's face to yank the commlink out of his jacket. "I'm on my way." He releases the commlink and looks back at Jyn's face, frowns and speaks into the comm again. "Kay, Jyn's on route to hangar 3, meet her at the end of the southeast corridor and escort her onto her ship. I want to know when she's boarded." 

Jyn blinks at the words, they don't make sense, but then Cassian's free hand has dropped to her wrist and he's pulling her along through the throng of soldiers and officers, the bleating in her ears growing worse. (Mama falls and Jyn waits alone in the dark, the hatch opens and Jyn is yanked out, kicking and clawing but not crying, she doesn't cry, Mama always asked her not to cry if she could help it.)

Then K-2 is there, towering over the mess and Cassian's hand falls away and Jyn still can't breathe—she can't go back, she'll steal a blaster, she'll pick a fight, she'll die like Mama did, fighting, but she'll never go back. K-2's vice-like grip closes over her shoulder. "Go with Kay, Jyn, he'll get you to your transport." ("Can you be brave for me, Jyn?" Mama asks, crouching to meet Jyn's eye. "Trust the Force." She says and then runs away, leaves Jyn behind.) 

Cassian's hand slips away and he presses something in to her hand, her fingers curl instinctively and she recognizes the cool grip of a pistol. "Go.” He repeats, jerking his chin over her shoulder, towards K-2, towards the hangars, “I'll see you soon." Jyn squeezes the grip of the blaster, opens her mouth to ask him to come with her—the Empire is coming, the Empires is coming, it isn’t safe—but then K-2 is moving, pulling her with him. Jyn struggles against it, looks back. "Cassian!" She calls, her knuckles gone white around the blaster in her hand, her voice is drowned out in her own ears, faint and small under the sirens and the stampede of noise.

"We can't leave him." she tells K-2, tries to appeal to whatever loyalty Cassian programmed into its head, “We can’t just leave him here.” But Cassian has given orders and there’s nothing Jyn can say to stall him. When Jyn turns her head again Cassian has already disappeared into the crowd. It feels like something hot, molten, viscous as tar, has spilled inside her skull. Her legs shake, threaten to buckle. K-2’s grip tightens. It isn’t lost on her that he could pick her up like a sack if he wanted to.

"I am to escort you to your ship Jyn Erso." Kay tells her, but his usual impatience is missing. "You cooperation will increase the likelihood of a successful evacuation." 

She thinks its meant to be a comfort. 

"We can't just leave him." She says again, her heart a smoldering coal blistering behind her lungs.

" _We_ are not." K-2 says, walking her up the boarding ramp. Makkal is there, pacing, takes Jyn by the arm as soon as she's within reach. She shields Jyn from view of the other officers onboard. "He'll be alright." She says, voice low in Jyn's ear as her hand lowers Jyn’s arm, keeps the blaster low. "Now but that away and take a seat. It could get bumpy up there."

-

The ship lifts into the air with a shuddering roar, and Jyn catches a single glimpse of the planet below before it shrinks and then disappear in a blur of stars.


	3. Chapter 3

Flying takes a small eternity. The transport ship isn’t big enough or well-stocked enough to keep this many people afloat for longer than a handful of days in space on tight provisions. She hopes it doesn’t come to that, the thought of being confined in such small quarters for long creeps under the skin and sets her aflame. 

Under her the bulkhead rumbles with hyperspace vibrations while all around shipmates murmur. After all the chaos and noise of the rebel base no one seems ready to speak above a whisper. Makkal walks the length of the cargo hold jury rigged to fit as many bodies as possible, silent and on high alert, her steel-grey eyes honing in on Jyn every time she passes. Jyn stays silent, bites the inside of her cheek and presses her palm over her hip where she slipped the blaster Cassian gave her. She itches to ask someone, anyone, if there’s word from base, if everyone’s cleared out, but the people most likely to have that information are the least likely to share it with her so Jyn sits on her patch of floor, back to the wall and knees drawn in tight, one hand around her mother’s necklace and wills the Force to hear her even if it’s never seemed to listen to her before. 

(Jyn used to pray—if praying is what it was—when she was a girl, sitting in her new rooms, first on Coruscant and then on Eadu. She used to sit on the floor like her mother sometimes did, close her eyes and strain her hears and try to listen the way Mama said she did. “Listen for what?” Jyn asked her, a child who had inherit her parents’ curiosity. “Whatever the Force has to say.” Mama answered. She’d stopped when she was thirteen, fed up with being ignored by her father let alone some mystical force at work in the universe.) 

Jyn’s legs and back are stiff by the time word gets around that they’re dropping out of hyperspace, the air in the hold thick with tension until they get the all clear. No sign of Imperial pursuit or interception up ahead. They’ve made a clean break. 

“Prepare to dock aboard _The Farragut_.” Calls a voice from the front of the cargo hold and all around her soldiers start taking to their feet, waking and stretching, raising their voices in conversation as though they’ve just remembered how to speak. Someone laughs across the hold, a short abrasive sound that gets absorbed by the bulkhead. Jyn wants to cover her ears, wants to close her eyes, wants the furious beating of her heart to settle. She touches her palm to the handle of the blaster hidden under her shirt. Takes a breath. Her mouth is still sour with fear, it sticks in her molars.

_Be safe, be safe, be safe._ She whispers inside her head, tapping her fingers against the side of Cassian’s blaster as though it were a talisman that’ll ensure his wellbeing. _Just be alive._ The kyber crystal at her throat vibrates as though calling out in response to an unheard song. 

-

_The Farragut_ is not the largest freighter Jyn’s ever seen but it is the largest she’s ever been on since she was a child. She isn’t familiar with the class or model, but she has eyes, can see the places where it’s been retrofitted, can see enough of its bones to know that war was not its original purpose in life. Like so much else in the Rebellion it has been appropriated to meet different needs, the results of which show equal amounts creativity, ingenuity, and desperation. A single star destroyer could blast the hull apart easily, Jyn thinks the first time she catches sight of it out the view port, a few well thought out strikes could render it pieces. 

. “Alright there?” Makkal asks, coming to a stop at Jyn’s side as she takes in the wide expanse of the hangar bay. It’s bigger than hangar 3 back at base, a motley assortment of ships scattered across the floor. 

“Has everyone arrived?” Jyn asks, biting her lip, hand resting over her hip in a manner that doesn’t feel natural, drawing whatever reassurance she can from the solid press of the blaster grip. 

Makkal shakes her head, “We can’t all take the same route here. That makes it too easy for someone to follow.” She crosses her arms in response to Jyn’s silence, “C’mon then, let’s go find something for you to do.” Jyn follows because she needs the distraction, thinks she’s liable to go mad if she’s left alone waiting.

They spend hours helping unload and take stock of cargo, categorize supplies and quantities of what’s made it off planet. That’s where Jyn learns _The Farragut_ is not their final destination, that it’s only a hold over point while command finalizes their move to their next location. “You got lucky Erso,” says a grinning pilot Jyn recognizes from around base, his curly dark hair knotted at the top of his head. She doesn’t know his name. “The base before Kieva wasn’t nearly so nice. Hope for your sake the next one’s just as cozy so you don’t get scared off.” He grins, lighthearted and teasing as though this whole ordeal means nothing, just one more well executed maneuver. Jyn doesn’t say anything, taking a box of what she thinks might be actual bombs from another soldier and walking it over to its newly designated area. 

(Kieva. Jyn files the name away inside her head, inscribes it in the marrow of her bones with the others. Lah’mu. Eadu. Kieva. She pictures it like a bead on a string, coming gently to a stop against the rest, a kind of keepsake. Kieva.)

They unload and move supplies until Jyn thinks her arms will break, exhaustion heavy on her shoulders.

“You look like shit.” Makkal says when she finds Jyn again, sitting atop a crate in a corner of the hangar bay. Ships have come and gone, two more in from the base on Kieva, but neither of those carried Cassian. Jyn doesn’t know what time it is exactly—doesn’t know that it would mean anything here, in the middle of the vast nothingness, without a sun to orientate by, just cold darkness followed by more cold darkness—but Makkal is carrying a thermos full of caf and two maize rolls. It must be near one meal time or another. 

“What can I say, all this has cut into my beauty rest.” Jyn mumbles, taking a long sip of caf. It is somehow even worse than the caf back at base (back on Kieva). Jyn drinks half of it in a gulp anyway. 

Makkal snorts under her breath, takes a seat without asking Jyn if she’d like the company. She tears into her roll with a nearly savage bite, throws the other into Jyn’s hands once she’s set the thermos down. 

"Do you still have it?" Makkal asks, words garbled around a full mouth but her eyes are fixed on Jyn’s face. 

Jyn nods. Makkal frowns, "Keep it close then but don't let anyone see you with it or there'll be hell to pay. They're real sticklers about who gets their hands on one of those and they'll never stop hassling you about how you got one during evac. Got it?"

Jyn nods again, eyes scanning the ships coming in to dock. "Cassian gave it to me." She says softly, "I didn't steal it."

Makkal sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. "Force help me you’re both kriffing children.” 

Jyn studies the roll pinched between her fingertips. She isn’t particularly hungry, her mouth dry and her entrails knotting with apprehension. She shakes it and watches crumbs sprinkle down onto her lap. She wants to argue, wants to tell Makkal off for thinking her a child but the memory of freezing in the hallway rattles inside her bones, shame and disappointment fused into one indistinguishable knot. Jyn picks at the crumbs on her leg until they stick under the edge of her nail. “I didn’t ask him for it.” She says slowly, unsure what she’s trying to defend. “I froze. I was on my way to you and I just—stopped." She says, "My whole mind went blank. I didn't know what to do—I couldn't even move. If he hadn't come for me—"

"Someone else would have gotten you moving." Makkal says, not unkindly, just matter of fact.

Jyn shakes her head. "I couldn't move. I just—I thought—if they came—if they found me I'd have to go back. And I can't go back there. I’d rather—" she gives a watery laugh, sucks in a hissing breath, rubs the taste of coolant and exhaust over the roof of her mouth. "They murdered my mother.” Jyn says. She doesn’t know that she’s said that in the nine years since Lah’mu.

Papa never spoke about it. “I loved your mother very much.” He told Jyn now and again, “And I love you Stardust. You are the reason I do everything.” But those word lost their meaning the longer they were on Eadu, the older Jyn grew and the less she saw of her father.

“She tried to save my father. She wanted to save all of us. And they killed her for it.” Her eyes burn with exhaustion, her skin feels too small to hold her bones together. Jyn could close her eyes and sleep for a year and it wouldn’t be long enough.

She can’t sleep now though. She can’t. She has to wait. “I’d rather die like her than ever go back to that—” Jyn shakes her head, tries to stop up the nonsense pouring out of her mouth. Her head aches. “But there's no reason to keep me alive any longer, is there? My father’s not there anymore." It sounds self-pitying, weak. Jyn presses her mouth thin as though it’ll keep any of it from being heard.

Makkal catches her off guard, touches Jyn’s arm gently with the tips of her fingers. Makkal's never touched Jyn without purpose before, to fix her stance, to take her to the mat, to stop her from touching something she shouldn’t. Her nails meet regulation, short and neat, a thick black band inked into the skin at the base of her middle finger. Jyn’s never asked what it means or how she got it. Now Jyn just stares at it, keeps her eyes fixed to it like it’s something for her to decipher.

Whatever Jyn is expecting to hear it isn’t: "You're here now, Erso. And so long as you have friends in the Rebellion, you're never going to go back."

Jyn swallows rapidly, feel s like a rancor’s hurtling itself against her ribcage. Makkal pats her arm twice in quick succession, draws her hand back, discomfort pulling the corners of her eyes tight. “Don’t let that go to waste.” Makkal says firmly, pointing to the bread still pinched in Jyn’s fingers.

“No ma’am.” Jyn croaks, something spinning loose inside her, unraveling quicker than she can catch at the frayed edges of her thoughts.

Makkal rolls her eyes and cuffs her in the shoulder. “Thank your stars I can’t demote you for being such a pain in my ass, Erso.”

-

She watches a battered U-wing descend with her heart pressed against the roof of her mouth. There's been some chatter of fighting during the tail end of the evacuation but no one's told her if it was on the ground or in the air, if there have been causalities or injuries. 

At Jyn’s hip the blaster barrel bites into her skin, pulls the memory of Cassian’s face to the forefront of her mind, the worry in his eyes and the tightness around his mouth as K-2 hurried her away. Somewhere a voice whispers that this is how she’ll remember him. Mama falling. Papa lying still. Cassian pulling away. 

She presses the kyber crystal to her mouth, for once uncaring of who might be watching her, and wills him to appear. _Be here. Be safe._

The U-wing lands with a blast of hot air, floods the hangar with the smell of exhaust. Jyn leans forward on her crate and watches, counts soldiers disembarking one by one. She doesn’t know how many more ships they’re still waiting for, doesn’t even know if all of them would come here. _The Farragut_ doesn’t seem a large enough ship to hold an entire vacated base in addition to its own crew.

Hope is a strange thing, alluring and frightening all at once. Jyn bites down on it hard to keep it from sprouting, feels it crack between her teeth, like a shell that gives way to bitter unripen pulp. 

They’re among the last to appear from the innards of the ship. Of course, it's K-2 she sees first, standing taller than anyone or anything else on the hangar floor, but once she catches sight of him she's standing, waiting and cut loose from all uncertainty at the same time. Jyn leaps off the crate, her boots strike the ground but her heart remains suspended midair, caught in a free fall even as she pushes through the bodies milling around the hangar floor. 

" _Cassian!_ "

He pivots towards the sound of her voice, and Jyn sees his face before his eyes find her, and that is the face she wants to remember, the one she wants to imprint behind her eyes when she thinks of him. The smile that takes over his face catches her like a blow to the gut, air pressing out her lungs. His eyes are weary; his hair a dark tangle atop his head, his clothes wrinkled from hours of travel, but his smile, his smile is a light, a solar flare flashing out in to the room. It blinds her.

His mouth moves and she thinks she recognizes the shape of her name on his lips, barrels into him at full force and almost topples them both over. K-2 grumbles something about Jyn making a scene but Cassian just laughs against the top of her head, arms locking around her as Jyn fists the back of his jacket with fingertips gone numb with relief. 

"Jyn." He breathes and Jyn doesn’t know what it is that shivers inside her, presses her face to his jacket and the solid body beneath it, curls her hands tighter and breathes. (Mama falling and Papa lying still. But Cassian smiles at the sound of her voice and Jyn never wants to forget it.)

"You're here," She laughs breathlessly, laughter awkwardly shaped on her tongue when her heart aches this badly, tears in her eyes and a madwoman’s smile splitting her face in two. His hand splays between her shoulders, radiates heat through the thin fabric of her tunic, presses just a fragment harder before he pulls back, puts a sliver of distance between them. He’s still smiling, still shining, still here. "So are you." 

Jyn laughs, nervousness bubbling up in her stomach as the rest of the world starts to trickle in around them. The other soldiers, the officers, the crewmen. Even K-2SO watching with his unblinking optic sensors, standing behind Cassian monitoring them both. She clears her throat, drops her arms until her hands are resting on his forearms, his hands still wrapped around her sides. “It took you long enough Andor.”

Cassian opens his mouth and Jyn spots the familiar wiry twist that precedes a joke, but whatever he means to say she never hears it. 

Behind them someone coughs and it's like the light extinguishes in Cassian's face, his smile put away, tucked out of sight in favor of a more subdued expression. He stiffens in her hold and Jyn lets her hands drop entirely before his do. Jyn turns out of Cassian’s grasp to catch General Draven's expression as he approaches. Kriff. The blaster at Jyn's hip scorches against her skin and she feels Cassian move at her back come to stand a standstill beside her, a gulf between their limp arms. 

Draven looks between them, mouth pressed into a thin line of disapproval, brow hard. “Lieutenant Andor,” he says brusquely, “when you’re able, I’d like a word with you.” It isn’t really a request, they both know it. Cassian goes rigid as though a string’s been pulled taut down the length of his spine. He nods, “Yes, sir.” 

Draven sends Jyn a parting glance that makes her insides go cold before he creeps away, shoulders his way across the hangar bay floor. 

Jyn tips her head towards him, glances at him through her fringe. Cassian exhales, a weak defeated sound out his nose. He rolls his shoulders when he catches her looking, gives her a muted grin. "Duty calls.” He says humorlessly, touches his fingers to the cuff of her sleeve, there and gone again like it never happened at all. “I'll find you after, yeah? Kay’ll keep you company until then."

K-2 whirs in protest, Jyn rolls her eyes, “I don’t need a babysitter.” 

Cassian chuckles, leans in close again to breath a conspirator’s whisper in her ear. “ _He_ does.”

K-2 fumes for the next few hours, but he sticks close while Jyn wanders the ship trying to familiarize herself with the new environment. Eventually she finds Makkal again, who directs her to someone who assigns her a patch of ground in a converted storage closet turned barrack. 

K-2 trails after her but doesn’t follow her in, stations himself outside the door with a put upon sigh. “If I am not here when you wake assume I have found something better to do.” He says as Jyn ducks into the room and she’s too tired to take offense, knocks her knuckles against K-2’s chassis the way she’s seen Cassian do and bids him sweet dreams. 

“I don’t dream.” He says, always one to have the last word. Jyn almost laughs, delirious with exhaustion. The room is cramped with bodies and stifling recycled air, but Jyn throws herself down, pack crammed beneath her head and sweat already beginning to gather under her clothes. She thinks she’ll drop off the moment she closes her eyes but she doesn’t, lies awake for a long time staring up at the low slanting ceiling. Her earlier elation has reduced to something dull, pulsing, a low grade fever shimmering just under the surface of her skin. It feels almost like longing. As though the thing she wants most is still out of reach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is reading and reviewing this story, I am having a lot of fun writing it! 
> 
> I'm considering writing a brief Cassian interlude but that might just be a one-shot extra rather than a chapter in this fic proper. *shrug* We'll see.
> 
> Feel free to drop by and say [hi on tumblr!](http://the-space-narwhal.tumblr.com/) Right now it all Rogue One gif sets and rebelcaptain feelings.


	4. Chapter 4

She wakes and finds her way to the shared refreshers, sonics and watches the last dust of Kieva disappear off her skin. She braids her hair tight afterward, shoulders her pack and wanders. K-2SO was gone when she left her shared sleeping quarters after a few hours of fitful sleep, which Jyn takes to mean he either found a task more to his liking or else Cassian came to find him. If it’s the latter he knows where Jyn’s been assigned as well and chances are he’ll find her again when time and responsibility allow. Until then it’s up to her to find ways to occupy herself. 

_The Farragut_ is not like the base on Kieva, people here have not had a year to grow familiar with Jyn, do not know her situation. They look at her rank-less shoulder, question what a civilian is doing aboard a rebellion vessel. “Someone’s kid?” Someone asks, barely glancing up from their work, and Jyn’s upper lip curls, bares her teeth. “No.” 

The officer looks up, eyebrow slightly raised. “Little young for a bride, aren’t you kid?” Heat rises in Jyn’s face, blooms across her cheeks. “Is there work for me to do or not?”

“I’ve gotta get clearance from on high, it might take a while. New bodies tend to back things up, you understand?”

Jyn restrains herself to keep from rolling her eyes, stalks away. 

-

Time shipside moves at an infuriating pace. Every second seems to drag, chafes over her back. She grabs a quick meal with Makkal before she has to run off for a briefing, though she knows Jyn well enough to direct her towards the lifts. “Training rooms.” She says simply, snagging the last bit of protein cube off her tray as she stands. “If you break anything, I don’t know you.”

This time Jyn does roll her eyes. 

The training rooms on _The Farragut_ are clean but crowded. Every single part of this ship is crowded, and Jyn misses the rocky terrain that lay outside the rebel base, the outcrops and ledges, the moorlands beyond them. The space. 

There’s nowhere to go here. 

It got easy to pretend on Kieva she realizes, standing at the threshold of rooms packed with bodies. Too easy. It became too easy to believe she knew her place, her role, what she wanted. Until K-2 dragged her aboard a ship Jyn thought she knew. She thought staying with the rebels was a matter of convenience, a way of learning all she could in order to survive on her own. That her days with them were numbered because eventually she would find a way to leave, to move on, to live her own life on her own terms. A life that didn’t require looking over her shoulder at every turn, watching every word. A life where Jyn might really be free. 

She doesn’t know when freedom began to look like just another way of being alone. 

-

There’s still sweat drying on her face when she treks back to her assigned barrack. It’s early enough still that she’s willing to hope the room will be emptier than it was before, and she’s tired still, muscles aching and head sore from lack of sleep. She can sleep now, she thinks, it isn’t as though there’s anything else for her to do. 

She’s still down the corridor but K-2 is hard to miss, standing like an imposing statue against the bulkhead. “Couldn’t find anything better after—” The sight of Cassian sitting on the corridor floor at K-2’s feet catches her off guard, cuts her words short. 

“Are you—”

“You must remain quiet for the next twelve minutes.” K-2 warns her in a lower voice than usual, “Or you must leave.”

Jyn stares at Cassian, sitting still against the bulkhead under the glaring lights of the corridor, knees tucked close to his chest and head bent forward over his folded arms. She blinks, glances at K-2 standing over him, projecting his usual aura of impatience, then back at Cassian.

He doesn’t look especially comfortable, shoulders tense and body folded over itself but he must be sleeping if he hasn’t so much as looked up yet. He doesn’t usually stay silent when K-2 is outright rude. Jyn flips both her palms up at K-2 in a placating motion, making sure to scowl as she does it so that he doesn’t get any ideas of her surrendering, crouches to the floor across the way. 

She’s never seen Cassian sleep before. If it weren’t for how tired he constantly looks to her she’d be willing to believe he doesn’t need it. Jyn doubts he’s slept since the evacuation and there’s no saying when he last got any rest before _that_ and it makes something like anger tangle around her entrails. 

He works too hard. Let’s others work him too hard. This rebellion will kill him and he’ll never even question the order that sends him to his death. Jyn knows this like she knows her mother was brave and her father was brilliant, that they were good people in terrible situations. Good people do not last long in wars. 

It’s such an odd feeling that takes hold of her while she studies him, Jyn didn’t know what to do with it at first. It’s worry and the aching softness of affection both. Different from what she feels for the memory of Mama, leagues away from what she feels at thoughts of Papa, the jagged-stone and fog-soft turns of love and resentment Jyn carries inside her still when she remembers him. The man who would pick her up and carry her on his shoulders. The man who crouched before her and asked her understand. (“Everything I do, I do it to protect you.”) 

It isn’t even quite what she feels for Makkal who took a skinny knobby-elbowed girl who flinched at shadows and taught her how to feel less afraid inside her own skin, so abrasive and sharp-witted and curt.

It’s a complicated tangle Jyn carries inside her for Cassian, something she picks at sometimes, intentionally and unconsciously, cautiously and without a clue of what might lie at the center. It burns hot at times, scalds her fingertips and blooms red in her cheeks. She wishes she could cup her hands around it, smother it like an exposed flame, have it diminish until it was something less frightening and easier to handle. 

Jyn watches the rise and fall of his shoulders, listens for the rasp of his breathing over the constant hum of the ship engine, shifts so that the butt of the blaster he was never supposed to give her doesn’t dig into the small of her back. 

The passage isn’t as busy as some of the other areas of the ship she’s been in so far but there’s still the occasional passerby, trotting by to get to their own rooms or else hurrying about their business. Everyone with something to do. Jyn doesn’t exactly ask, she just makes sure to keep her own legs pulled up to keep the corridor clear. They get a few odd looks here and there but Jyn glares back hard or else ignores them all together.

Twelve minutes pass. She shakes her head when K-2 makes to wake Cassian and by some miracle the droid listens. 

_A little while longer_ , she thinks, _he can use it._

She tips her own head back against the bulkhead and closes her eyes. There’s an idea forming at the back of her head, an inkling she thinks she’s been tracing the outlines of for weeks if not months now. She’s just been reluctant to see it for what it is. _Just a little while longer._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that wraps up what was supposed to be part two but ended up being broken up into three parts! Choices are about to be made friends! The plot shimmers. 
> 
> Feel free to come say hi on [tumblr](http://the-space-narwhal.tumblr.com/), or just cry at me about your rebelcaptain feelings.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! So working off a rough idea of ages here: Jyn is about 17 here. I'm going off the idea that she would have been 8/9 when they were found on Lah'mu and then she spent about 8 years prisoner.

Jyn means to return the blaster to Cassian before he asks for it. She really does.

But one day passes into the next and he doesn't ask, and then another and another. He doesn't ask. They've been on _The Farragut_ almost a week and the ship is teeming with restlessness, everyone feeling their confinement heavily. Makkal says command is still trying to figure out what to do with their lot, lets slip that rumor has it they'll be reassigned across a number of different bases. The possibility rattles inside Jyn’s bones, splinters them down to the marrow. What might that look like Jyn wonders, the three of them scattered across the galaxy. It itches across her tongue.

"Don't worry about it too much." Makkal says, which is as close to soothing as she ever gets, "There's nothing for it until they've made up their minds." 

But there’s nothing for Jyn to do but worry. It’s like a sore tooth left to fester at the back of her mouth, fever-hot and pulsing. Days pass one by one and Jyn feels all over as though she’s living on borrowed time. 

Jyn’s worry just serves to sharpen the idea in her head until its edges are defined to a razor's edge. 

-

They're alone together, out of sight in the belly of the U-wing that delivered him to _The Farragut_ when Jyn finally pulls the blaster out of her waistband. 

Cassian doesn't notice at first, tangled in the wires of the navcom, bickering with K-2 about a lapsed circuit. Before meeting them Jyn didn't know droids _could_ argue with their makers. She used to think it was a sign of a botched reprograming that Cassian wasn't able to install total compliance in K-2SO. It didn't take long for Jyn to pick up on the fact that she wasn't the only person on the rebel base who felt the same way and less for her to realize that most of the other rebels gave K-2 wide berth, skittish around him unless Cassian was within sight and even then. 

Nowadays Jyn suspects that Cassian might not have had anyone to argue with until K-2 came along. The thought of it sits uneasy in her gut.

By the time he emerges, grease-streaked and harried, Jyn’s standing there, waiting with the blaster lying in her hands like an offering, her shoulders forced straight and steadier than she feels. 

"I told you she'd try to kill you." K-2 says drolly, turning from the panel he was previously working on to face Jyn full on. She holds her ground but keeps her hold of the pistol lax. The last thing she wants now is for K-2 to charge her in an attempt to defend Cassian from perceived harm. 

Jyn glares at him. "Don't try me, target practice." She snaps even as Cassian hisses, " _Kay_."

"I wanted to give this back to you.” Jyn says in only slightly better temper, “Seems he's not the only one people get twitchy around when he gets his hands on a firearm." It's a petty jab at K-2, but there's satisfaction in needling him. It helps settle some of the frayed edges of Jyn's nerves. K-2 whirs, indignant, "I'm statistically more likely to be of use with a blaster. _I_ actually get to leave the base." Jyn bites down a snarl, knows she shouldn't allow herself to get derailed sniping at K-2SO. She had a plan. She needs to stick to it.

Cassian strides forward, steps between Jyn and K-2 as though he can physically keep them from antagonizing each other. He looks at K-2 over his shoulder, "Kay, can you take a look at the external dampeners—"

“I’ve already assessed the condition of the external dampeners—”

“Check them again and see if there’s been any changes.” Cassian nods towards the U-wing door. “Please.”

“You could just order me to leave.” K-2 grumbles as he stomps away and Cassian rolls his eyes, “As if you’d listen.” Cassian calls after his retreating back, though there’s something in his face that strays close to fondness because Cassian has obviously sustained too many blows to the head in his time as a soldier.

“That won’t keep him long.” Cassian says once it’s just the two of them, and Jyn glances down to the blaster in her hands. He hasn’t taken it back yet. 

“He’s right though.” She says, which isn’t where she meant to start at all, but the words are all jumbled out of order now and Jyn can feel her resolve shrinking, crumbling like loosely packed sand beneath her feet. She can fall back or leap. That’s the choice before her. That’s always the choice. “I was never supposed to leave the base.” 

Cassian’s brow furrows. “You left the base.”

“With you.” She points out, and no this isn’t where she meant to start at all but it’s still true. “Or Makkal or someone else to babysit me. And never farther than the moors.” It hurts to think of the base on Kieva as nothing more than a slightly bigger cage than the one she had back on Eadu.

“There wasn’t much to see beyond that, believe me.” He says, trying for humor, but it doesn’t suit him in this situation. He’s uncomfortable, and either he can’t hide it or isn’t trying to. 

“I want to fight.” She says, and catches the twitch of Cassian’s jaw, the resolve that hardens in his eyes. This is not a new conversation. This is not a new fight. “Jyn you’re too young to enlist.” 

“How old were you?” she asks, impatient now that she’s cut loose from her map, flying blind into a storm. “You think I haven’t heard what they say about you? You’re not exactly new to this life.”

Cassian stills, looks almost like he’s forgotten how to breathe, turned to stone in front of her eyes. “We’re not talking about me now. I’m not the one trying to talk my way into a commission here Jyn.”

Jyn grips the blaster tighter and outside the ship there’s the din and rumble of the rest of the world, but inside it’s just them, just Cassian staring back at her with betrayal darkening his face. “What’s your rush?” He asks, just as impatient as Jyn, voice iron and broken glass. “Are you really so eager to let the Empire finish what they started.”

Jyn flinches against her will, rears back as though to strike. Cassian doesn’t move, eyes raking her face, looking for a winning argument. He sighs, switches tactics, voice softening. “You don’t have anything to prove Jyn.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything.” She retorts, sharp and desperate to be believed, “I’m trying to help.”

“You _are_ helping.” He says, placation riddled with frustration as though she’s being purposefully dense. “You don’t need a blaster in your hand to fight against the Empire, Jyn—why—wait out the year. Enlist then, there’ll be no stopping you if it’s what you really want. You know that.” 

“What difference does another year make Cassian? We could all be dead in a month; the Empire could wipe us all out—” her teeth click together so hard it hurts down to the roots and she blinks her eyes to clear visions of schematics that were only ever lines on a grid to her. A planet killer, her father whispered, a death star. (It died with him, she tells herself. He took its completion to the grave with him and it hurts to know that was the cost of atonement, but she thinks her father would be relieved to know the Empire will never have a weapon like that at their disposal.) 

Cassian reaches towards her, places his hand over the pistol still lying in her palms. There’s grease embedded around his nails, his fingertips are tacky with it. “One more year Jyn. Then you can enlist just like everyone else.” 

Jyn shakes her head with a jerky turn of her chin. “I’m not like everyone else though am I? How many civilians are aboard this ship? How many were back on base? How many were taken from Imperial installations or questioned for information? I’m not like everyone else here Cassian. We both know it.”

Cassian frowns, so somber and serious, it ages him a decade, a century. Jyn’s eyes sting. That’s how old she feels some days. A hundred years old, cracked and crumbling from loss. 

“They killed my family.” She says, voice level, hands steady beneath his. Cassian blinks, hair falling into his eyes when he ducks his head. “They killed mine too.” He responds, and whatever he feels about it has been stripped away, words offered to her like the bare bones of facts no one can alter, as fixed as the stars in the sky. Jyn’s always suspected but the confirmation makes her stomach lurch, even under the anger still licking at her insides, it hurts to her to hear it. 

“Cassian.” She starts, licks her cracked lips. He looks up, expression pinched, stitched tight with anger and worry and something else, something Jyn doesn’t know the name of. She wonders what her face looks like, what he reads in her and what he’ll do with the information. 

“My entire life—” she presses her lips closed, worries her tongue over the back of her teeth, laps at the ridges that line the roof of her mouth. “I’ve never had a choice. I was a child and then I was a prisoner and now I’m—I don’t even know what I am but I know—I’ve never had a choice in any of this. Maybe you didn’t either,” she watches his eyes, memorizes the shape of them, the way his lashes lay against his skin when he blinks. “But I want to make one now. I can’t hide anymore. I can’t—I can’t wait any longer.” On Eadu she had always been waiting. Waiting for her room door to be unlocked. Waiting for her father to emerge from behind the lab doors. Waiting for Krennic to make good on his threats, for a blaster barrel pointed at her and the flash of the bolt that would cut her down (Mama lifts her arm and troopers cut her down. She disappears into the grass as though she was never there at all). “And I know I’ll never convince them on my own. I need you. I need you to help me make them listen.”

"Jyn, I can't—"

"You gave me this." She half-gestures with the blaster in her hands. "You—you’ve always—" _Helped. Been there._ "You gave me this because you knew I could use it. You trusted me to use it.” Cassian doesn’t deny it and Jyn’s heart hurts, kicking against the cage of her ribs. “You said I deserved better than what I'd had. Doesn't that include a choice in what I do now." She swallows hard, throat so dry it feels swollen with thirst. “Will you help me do that?” 

His hand slips from hers, slides to her left wrist, up her forearm. He leaves smudged black fingerprints in his wake. “You have to understand Jyn,” Cassian says, his fingers digging into her arm, not rough just steady, firm. His touch stirs a feeling in her that’s half-reassurance, half-fear, “It won’t bring them back. Sometimes—” His mouth twists, and there’s something, something so close to fear in his eyes that Jyn’s throat aches. She’s seen that look before. (“Every I do, I do it to protect you.”) “It feels like all it does it take pieces of you instead. Somedays it won't feel like anything at all and you'll know--those are worse. But you'll never get them back.” 

“It’s my decision.” She answers, willing him to understand, “Whatever happens next it’ll still be my decision.”

-

"She's too young." Draven’s face barely moves when he says it, sitting behind his borrowed desk aboard _The Farragut_. 

Jyn hadn’t liked this plan of action any better than Cassian had liked the idea of her trying to enlist a year early but standing in in front of Draven at the moment feels like the worse of the two situations. At the very least her conversation with Cassian had been private. Draven is the last spectator Jyn could ask for. He’s the last person she’d ever think of turning to for support. But Cassian had asked her to trust him. And she does in this. Force help her Jyn trusts him. 

Cassian doesn’t glance at her at Draven’s words, keeps his hands braced against the small of his back at ease. "I was younger than she is now when I enlisted." It isn’t outright argumentative but it earns Cassian a hard look. He’s toeing a line. Jyn curls her hands to keep from wiping them on her trousers. She fixes her eyes straight ahead, keeps them on Draven’s pale eyes and the lines etched deep around his mouth.

"This situation is rather different Lieutenant Andor." 

“It is,” Cassian agrees, his shoulders perfectly squared, his nod efficient. “But with all due respect, General, we both know the Rebellion isn't in a position to reject any soldier willing and able to fight."

Jyn’s breath goes still in her chest, her heart beats swift inside her ears. She wants to reach for her mother’s kyber, misses the weight of the borrowed blaster to counterbalance the slick sense of unease she feels standing here, awaiting judgement. 

"She isn't just any recruit.” Draven says, leaning forward at his desk. If Jyn thought she knew the full weight of his attention before, she swiftly learns the difference. Suddenly they’re no longer on _The Farragut_. She’s in a meeting room back on Kieva, dressed in second-hand fatigues, her hair still rain damp against the back of her neck. Her father is dead and she’s alone, well and truly alone now. The general speaking to her doesn’t mince words, entreats her to cooperate else the rebels take her back to where they found her. 

Draven looks at her like he’s picking apart her insides. Jyn blinks, wills the memory away, stares back at Draven just as intently. She won’t be intimated. “Miss Erso might have information about Imperial weapons manufacturing—"

"I don't." Jyn says, unable to keep silent. "I don't know anything about that. I've told you already. I wasn't allowed near the labs."

"So you've said, but your father might have let something slip, something of significance greater than you understood at the time."

Cassian steps in before Jyn can give in to the anger lashing across her tongue. "You're right, sir." Jyn stops, eyes widening before she can stop herself and she reels back as though burned. "Jyn does know more than any of us have given her credit for. She's lived in Imperial space. She knows their routines, their strategies, their thinking," Draven hasn’t looked away from her since Jyn spoke and it covers her skin in pins and needles. "If she enlisted today she’d already be leagues ahead of the average recruit due to that fact alone. She knows how to handle a blaster and her combat skills are more than proficient, an admirable skill considering how little training she had before joining us. She’s learned our systems, aided us in every capacity she’s been allowed. I think she’s proved herself an asset, sir, one the Rebellion can’t afford to waste."

Draven raises an eyebrow. "You certainly think highly of Miss Erso's skills, Lieutenant." He says drily and Jyn bites the inside of her cheek, blood rising along the column of her neck, flushing her skin warm. She steals a glance at Cassian out of the corner of her eye and he seems to have straightened impossibly further, a single line of bone and sinew pulled so tight it’s a miracle the skin doesn’t snap and give way to the mess within. His expression is as subdued as Draven’s, as contained, but there’s color blooming faintly along his cheeks and Jyn bites down harder until there’s the faint metallic tang of blood in her mouth. 

"You can speak with Captain Makkal sir, she'll tell you the same thing." He says in response, and that does ring closer to a challenge. Draven almost looks surprised, though the expression flickers on his face like a shadow, there and gone before Jyn can fully commit it to memory. 

"You’re dismissed Lieutenant Andor." Draven says, pushing something aside on his desk. “I’d like to speak to Miss Erso alone.” Jyn’s insides run cold. (“We can take you back to wherever it is we found you.”)

Cassian hesitates and there’s a real second there, a prolonged moment when Jyn thinks he’ll disobey, stay rooted in place at Jyn’s side in front of Draven’s desk. Her back is rigid with tension. She doesn’t actually know what she wants. For him to stay. For Draven to take her seriously on her own.

She meets his eye and wills him to see her. _Go_ , she thinks, _I can do this_. She doesn’t know if that’s true but she wants it to be. Cassian nods, eyes lingering on hers before he turns on his heel, steps out of the room without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whether or not 18 is the actual age for enlisting in the rebellion i have zero clue buuut for the purposes of this story its what i'm going with. :-)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

The door whishes shut behind Cassian, shuts with a metallic thud that rings hollow in the quiet he leaves behind. Draven tips his head towards a lone stool wedged into a corner of the room. “Pull up a seat Miss Erso.” 

He has a way of saying her name that clips all the syllables apart, isolates them in a way that makes Jyn feel as though they’ll never find their way back together again. It sets her teeth on edge.

Jyn wants to resist and remain standing, anything that might grant her an advantage in the conversation to come. But the truth is she has no advantage to play here. She grabs the stool and hauls it over, takes a seat as requested, reels her spine straight and tries to tries to replicate Cassian's rigidity.

(Krennic sits opposite her at a metal table set with dining ware finer than anything Jyn ever sees in the mess, silent and sneering, a man wrapped in a total sense of victory. On her lap Jyn balls her hands into fists so tight her nails draw blood to the surface of her palms. Her father is coming, she reminds herself. Papa will be here soon. There’s a purpose to enduring this gloating man, a reason to remain silent and seated.)

Draven studies her with the air of somebody tasked with scrapping something unpleasant from the bottom of their boot. Jyn holds herself perfectly still. “Why are you doing this Miss Erso?” He asks finally, fingers drumming over the surface of the desk.

Jyn blinks, makes sure her face betrays none of the turmoil turning over in her stomach. A year of keeping Cassian’s company, a year of navigating her way through unofficial interrogations, all lying over eight years on Eadu, of learning how to keep quiet, make herself small. Remain unseen. She holds her head high. “I want to fight General.”

Draven tips his head forward, eyes dropping briefly. His mouth twitches into something inexplicable. Unpleasant. “Yes, I’ve heard. But why is that?”

Jyn folds her hands in her lap, fingers interlocking. She focuses on the weight of the kyber against her chest, the warmth of it, the odd pulse of it pressed to her skin. “I thought that would be obvious, sir.” She says innocently enough. “I want the Empire destroyed. Same as you. Same as every other rebel in this war.”

Draven’s eyes narrow. “Be that as it may Miss Erso, I’m not convinced that means we’re on the same side.”

Jyn doesn’t avert her gaze, meets Draven’s eyes unflinchingly. “I didn’t know there were more than two sides to this fight.”

Draven frowns deeply. “You’d do well not to fall into the trap of believing that, Miss Erso. The world isn’t so easily divided into black and white. Wars require difficult choices. Difficult choices are not always easy or straightforward. But we must be willing and able to make them.”

“What would it take to convince you I’m willing to make those choices, sir?”

Draven leans forward in his chair. “The truth Miss Erso. Simple as that.”

Jyn swallows. 

The truth is a rare commodity and not one easily bartered with.

But her father taught her that the best lies were those with pieces of truth embedded throughout, the lies that offer just enough for the teller to get away with what isn’t being said. Papa built their machine for them for eight long years and kept them both alive by doing what they asked of him, slowly, meticulously, paying unerring attention to each and every detail. The work he produced was always above approach. Who could accuse him of resisting when he gave them what they wanted in the end. 

“They’ll forgive a broken man his caution because that’s what they believe me to be.” Papa whispered under the dim lights of his lab on one of the rare nights Jyn was allowed in. “It suits their pride, Stardust.” 

Jyn is not a spy. She is not a soldier. But she is a survivor. She’s spent half her life living as a captive of the Empire and the other half in fear of its shadow darkening their homestead’s door. She looks and Draven and know what he sees when he looks at her, what he expects to see. A child, stubborn, angry, headstrong. Jyn is all those things, she knows she is, but there’s more to her than even Draven knows to look for. 

(Jyn scrambles over the muddy hillside, palms scrapped raw and stinging after her fall, but she doesn’t cry, doesn’t stop, picks herself up and keeps running, just like she’s supposed to, to the cave, runs and runs with her pack beating against her back and her heart throbbing. Mama ran back and Mama fell, disappeared into the grass as though she’d never stood there at all but Jyn doesn’t cry, she doesn’t cry. Mama always asks Jyn not cry, never to cry, not if she can help it.)

“The truth.” Jyn says, voice blunt, inelegant. She squeezes her hands tight, so tight her fingertips prickle as they begin to numb. “What truth is that, sir?”

“Anything you know about your father’s work to start.” Draven says, tapping his thumb against the edge of a datapad. 

“The truth, General, is as I’ve said before. I wasn’t allowed in the labs. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about his work. I was there to keep him in check, nothing more.” Draven doesn’t seem any more convinced than he has any other time they’ve had this conversation. Jyn licks the corner of her mouth, finds a morsel of truth to offer him in exchange for holding her father’s secrets safe. “He taught me a bit about encrypting data files, not much—we weren’t allowed much time together without someone watching but—he did teach me. What he thought might be useful.” 

Jyn liked to believe Papa was working on a way of escaping, that he spent his hours tucked away in his lab thinking up ways of getting them off Eadu, away from Krennic, of getting them somewhere safe. 

She had wanted so much for that to be true. 

Draven ducks his head, remains silent for a long beat. Jyn lets her discomfort show, fidgets in her seat, worries her mouth. 

“If you were granted a commission Miss Erso, be it tomorrow or within a year, there is something you must understand. The act of withholding information will no longer be a simple discourtesy. If it is discovered you are willfully lying to your superior officers, for whatever reason, no matter how well intended, you’ll be facing charges of sedition, if not treason. And nothing and no one would be able to intervene or spare you from the full consequences of your actions. Is that clear?”

(“If there's nothing to talk about, we'll just put you back where we found you.”)

Jyn nods, mouth pressed thin. “Crystal.”

-

Cassian is waiting at the end of the corridor when Jyn finally emerges. K-2SO is loitering nearby, apparently in deep conversation with an astromech droid. K-2 doesn’t spare so much as a glance in Jyn’s general direction but Cassian approaches, strides clipped short as though he’s barely restraining from a full out run.

“Jyn—” he reaches for her hands.

Jyn shakes her head. _Not yet._ She jerks her chin back towards the closed door of Draven’s office. “He wants to speak to you.” She says, hones her voice to a razor’s edge, precise and unerring.

Cassian’s hands drop back to his sides. His face smooths with a nod. A perfect solider once more. He nods. “Right.” 

“The chances of General Draven supporting your cause decreased 12.7 percent during your meeting. And 4.9 percent now that he’s asked for Cassian.” K-2 says unhelpfully, deciding to come over to Jyn now that he’s successfully scandalized the astromech and sent it rolling away. 

“I didn’t ask.” Jyn drawls, biting her thumbnail between her teeth. It’s a bad habit, one she hasn’t indulged in since she was a child. There’s hardly any nail to bite now but she gnaws on the blunt edge of it anyway.

“You never ask.” K-2 rebuffs, head tilting. “What did the General say?” 

“Can’t you deduce our conversation with an algorithm?” Jyn snaps, eyes fixed on the closed door down the hall.

K-2 makes a whirring sound that Jyn thinks is the approximation of a put-upon sigh. “Your surliness suggests what he said was not to your liking.”

Jyn keeps biting at her nail, remains silent. It isn’t a tactic that ever really works with K-2 but who’s to say today isn’t a day for miracles.

“Will you be sent away?” K-2 asks curiously, and Jyn cranes her head back, peers up at his dull metal face, the dim glow of his optics. “Don’t sound too hopeful there.”

Something in K-2 hums louder. “It has always been a possibility. It is not typical rebel protocol for untrained civilians to be allowed such long-term residency at operating military installations.” K-2 says, the way he describes the state of a ship or the high risk of failure. “I would not miss you.” He adds finally, head tilting away from Jyn. “But Cassian might. He seems rather attached to you. Not sure why.” He says it with an air of pronounced confusion. Against all odds, it make Jyn grin.

“You're not going soft on me, are you Kay?”

The humming intensifies. “Physically impossible at these temperatures.”

"No really,” she teases, buoyed by K-2 utter bewilderment at human attachment, “I may cry.”

"You are incomprehensible Jyn Erso."

"Good."

-

She's been standing there an hour in near silence, just her and K-2 standing side by side waiting. K-2 breaks the quiet at regular intervals to Jyn about her conversation with Draven (Jyn could figure out the pattern to it if she cared enough to pay that much attention). She bites her mouth tender, ignores his insistent questioning and keeps her eyes fixed on the bulkhead across from her. Her stomach growls behind her navel but food is the last thing on her mind. A part of her wants to ask K-2 what he reads in their waiting, what the odds are with every passing second but she knows that's a door she doesn't want to open. K-2 is only too happy to inform her of how close she is to failing at any given moment, she doesn't really want to hear it now.

"Where did Cassian find you?" Jyn asks, minutes before K-2's next timed interrogation.

K-2 whirs, "I found him.” He says, a touch of pride in his voice. “He was stealing from an Imperial weapons' cache in the Dorme system." K-2 hesitates, which is an anomaly of behavior in the droid, and then adds, almost apologetic, "I nearly killed him.” 

Jyn doesn't look at K-2, blinks at the lights overhead. "He doesn't seem too bothered by it now."

K-2SO makes an odd clanking grunt. "No but he does not always exhibit the best decision-making skills when it comes to his own self-preservation." It's as close to criticism of Cassian as Jyn's heard from K-2.

Jyn peels a straggling bit of skin off her bottom lip. It would take someone with less than excellent self-preservation skills to look at a murderous KX unit and decide reprograming it was a better choice than destroying it. 

They’re an odd set, the three of them. A spy who seems barely more than a child, an orphaned civilian with Imperial connections, a reprogramed tank of a droid. She doesn’t wonder why so few of their fellow shipmates speak to them. 

If they’re divided, K-2 would remain with Cassian and Jyn, well, Jyn doesn’t know where they’d send her. Another base perhaps. Or some small world on the edge of nowhere. Somewhere out of the way where she won’t be a hindrance. Cassian might miss her K-2 said but Jyn knows she would miss him, miss them both for all she and K-2 jab at one another. She thinks of Cassian asleep in the hallway and K-2 standing guard, K-2 walking her to the boarding ramp of the transport ship on Cassian’s orders. She wonders when she was adopted into the proficient unit they make or how she didn’t notice it happening. 

"You didn't really think I'd shoot him, did you?" Jyn asks, remembering K-2's reaction in the U-wing.

"The chance has decreased significantly." K-2 concedes after a moment’s processing, "But I would not be surprised if it occurred. Organics such as you can be very volatile."

Jyn rolls her eyes, huffs a laugh under her breath. "I'm more likely to take a shot at you if we're being honest."

K-2's response gets cut off by the whistle of a door sliding open. Jyn turns towards the sound, catches Cassian as he exits Draven’s office. He looks brittle under the unforgiving lights of the corridor, face blank in an unnerving way, like he’s buried every scrape of himself somewhere far, far below. “Not here.” Cassian whispers before either Jyn or K-2SO can ask for information, one hand coming up to hold Jyn’s arm. There’s uncertainty in his grasp, the light touch somehow makes Jyn more nervous than any amount of waiting, but she remains quiet, catalogues the stillness of his features, the tight pull at the corner of his mouth, the shadow of unhappiness she can make out behind the impassive mask he wears so well. 

Her mind races, turns over Draven’s words, trips over her own, stumbles over her own fear as the three of them step onto a lift. Cassian doesn’t say where they’re going, pushes a level on the lift panel seemingly at random, his sole objective to put as much space as he can between them and the office they’ve left behind. They exit the lift in silence, step out into a nearly empty hall. “Here.” Cassian says, ducking into the entry way of what Jyn knows to be a room full of data servers. K-2 positions himself with his back to them as a kind of look out, reading the need for one in Cassian’s nervous secrecy. Jyn’s heart triples in speed, nervousness radiating cold out from the center of her chest. 

(“Consider your answer very carefully Miss Eros.” Draven says, pale eyes fixed on her face as though he already knows, but he can’t, he can’t know. There’s nothing to know now.)

"What happened?" Jyn asks, studying his face. That unnerving blankness is still there, but she can see now the places where it’s starting to pry loose, the struggle it is for him to keep it in place. _You’re both kriffing children_ , Makkal said but Jyn forgets it sometimes. Forgets Cassian isn’t any better suited to this life they lead, even if he’s been doing it longer. Maybe not a child, not the way she remembers childhood—skipping stones and studying tide pools, digging holes in the field and burying Stormie only to unearth him—but not entirely a soldier either. Good people die first, she thinks, staring up at his face, lean and sharp now, sharper than when she first met him, his dark hair gone so long now that it nearly brushes his shoulders. She wants to touch it, stroke her fingers through it the way her mother would rake her fingers through Jyn’s hair after a bad dream, just to see if she can’t ease the empty look from his face. 

Cassian blinks and all at once the blankness gives way to a storm front, a tidal wave of fury and fear she barely gets to see before his arms go around her in a crushing hug. Jyn freezes for a painful second, heart hammering inside her throat, as jarring as the recoil of a blaster, the jumble of thoughts clanking to a halt all at once. He’s folded awkwardly, forehead pressed to her shoulder, and Jyn’s arms feel like deadweights, uncooperative and clumsy when she finally gets them to lift. It’s graceless, the heavy-handed way she pats at his back. 

"Draven agreed." Jyn whispers after a moment. She hadn't been sure if he would, not even after their conversation, but she does now, feeling the fine tremor locked beneath Cassian’s skin. Against her skin the kyber crystal grows warm and the skin beneath it prickles, Jyn closes her eyes and wonders if it’s answering Cassian’s fear. 

"He did." He echoes faintly, voice muffled against her shoulder. Jyn nods, nose brushing over his work tunic, breathes in the faint scent of sweat and engine grease. 

“It’ll be alright.” She says, feels ill equipped to offer comfort but wants desperately to do it. 

“I—I’m sorry.” He answers, voice gone small. He doesn’t pull away, and that’s the most damning act of all she thinks. He comes across as so self-contained, consistent in a way that some misinterpret for stagnant. Jyn’s heard the other soldiers whisper about him just as she’s heard them whisper about her. (“Andor’s got about as much feeling as that droid he keeps around.” “He’s an Intelligence spook, you never know with that lot.” “Think he took the tiny Imp for some warmer company?”) He’s not unfeeling, not the way she thought he’d be when she first found out what it was he did for the Rebellion. Far from it. 

Cassian’s like her, he’s learned to lock it all away, taught himself how to keep it hidden less it be used against him.

“It’ll be alright.” She repeats; tries to put as much conviction in her voice as she can muster. “Whatever happens. We’ll be alright.” She curls her fingers into the back of his shirt, the fabric worn thin under her nails. “I—thank you. For helping me.”

He shakes his head, lifts until his nose brushes her temple, his breath ghosts over her cheek when he speaks. “Don’t thank me.”

“Well—” she swallows, the heat off Cassian’s skin raising the warmth in her own. “I won’t blame you either. Whatever happens. I promise.” It feels closer to something she can give him, closer to the shape of the truth. 

“Jyn.” He breathes her name and Jyn tightens her hold on him. 

(“Whatever I do, I do it to protect you.”)

She smooths her hand over the nape of his neck, runs her fingers through the soft hair there. He whispers her name again and Jyn press her lips closed against the watery laugh that rises in her throat. They won. She won. Yet she can’t shrug off the feeling that she’s lost something. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I love these characters
> 
> Also me: How can I make them suffer?
> 
> Come yell with me on [tumblr](http://the-space-narwhal.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

Dantooine is a green place. The greenest Jyn's seen in her life.

Her dim memories of Coruscant are full of glass and steel and rounded corners, smothering softness and stilted quiet and the hush of her parents' voices whispering just beyond her door. Her clearest memories are of her parents carrying her: Mama ushering Jyn away from her father's late night gatherings, Papa picking her up out of the shadowed corners where she watched.

Jyn remembers Mama wrapping her in a heavy woolen shawl and telling her they were leaving. "You must be quiet as a dormouse, Jynnie, can you do that for me? Whatever happens, you mustn't cry." She remembers the oddly warm air that always tasted of exhaust and the glowing world of lights beyond, remembers watching them glimmer as Papa carried her towards the ship that would take them away from the Empire for a little while. 

There were worlds between, dusty deserts and red-salt fields, marshlands somewhere on the Outer Rim where they'd all coughed incessantly, unable to get enough air under the tangled web of tree vines that suffocated the light. There were worlds Jyn wasn't old enough to learn the names of and temporary shelters quickly abandoned in even quicker moves, shuttled from star system to star system, taking refuge on miniscule moons and the overcrowded space stations where no one would look too closely at strangers. 

In her memories Lah’mu stands apart, a grey-blue wonder, like a shard of sea glass carefully guarded in a collection of keepsakes. Jyn remembers it in pieces, carefully excavated from beneath years of stillness. Her mother's voice as she told Jyn about the things that grew around them, the very rock under their feet, her father's hands and the scars he collected with every attempt he made at retrofitting droids for farming, the bank of computers on the wall that monitored their farm. Jyn remembers white sea foam collected on the black shore line and the black brackish water that puddled in tide pools, hours spent watching the thin silver glint of fishes zig-zagging back and forth until the tide came in to wash them back out to sea. 

(Jyn remembers the dark of the cave, the mud that stained her knees and the gravel that dug into her hands when she fell. She remembers—though she tries to forget, tries to blot it from her mind in its entirety—the blaster burn on her mother's chest, the scorched fabric and the pallor of her skin, cool to the touch when she crept close to her aboard the ship that carried them all away from home.)

Eadu was all rock and duracrete and endless rain beating against the walls. It's the scar that bisects the life line on Jyn's palm, cutting it in half, a permanent disfiguration. Everything else changes around it but it alone remains the same. After Eadu the washed-out slate of the base on Kieva was familiar and different all the same, a place where Jyn learned to stand on her own feet, though she still occasionally caught herself looking behind her, waiting for someone to appear at her back. Krennic or death troopers or even her father, as though Papa weren’t gone and instead waiting just around the corner. 

Dantooine is green, a hundred different shades of it. Green and brown and earthen, with rich blue skies overheard and wisps of white clouds trailing like fingers through pools of still water. Jyn thinks she could spend hours looking up here, just watching the sky shift from one shade of blue to another, spends the short evening moments she has to herself watching the golden sun fall over the forested land that surrounds the rebel base, watches the green world smooth into a single dark mass under a velvet violet sky studded with stars.

It’s in those moments of quiet that Jyn lets herself wonder if Cassian has ever seen a sky as large or as far-reaching as the evening sky looks on Datoonie. It’s only then that Jyn wonders what kind of sky Cassian sees wherever he is now, if its blue or grey or the odd foggy shade of lavender the sky on Kieva took on just before sunrise.

-

Jyn's life as a rebel is not so different from the life she knew before. She's Private Erso now, which Makkal seems to take a great deal of joy drawling when she passes Jyn in the hall. They still train together in the earliest morning hours, still sit together for the occasional meal, but Jyn reports directly to Captain Buros now, a washed out looking man of indeterminable age, with closely cropped hair and eyes so dark they look almost black. He took her on with his newest recruits the moment they arrived on Dantooine without a word of acknowledgement to Jyn’s prior status as the daughter of an Imperial collaborator and Jyn’s yet to find the nerve to ask anyone if that means he doesn’t know or simply doesn’t care. 

What he does seem to care about is her performance during hand-to-hand combat training. "Erso." Buros sighs, for what feels like the hundredth time in the four months she's been under his command, "The point is to _disarm_ Vobal, not take off her _arm_." 

"Apologies sir." Jyn pants, getting back on her legs. She offers Private Vobal a hand up. Vobal takes it gingerly and accepts Jyn's help before wandering back to her side of the training mat, still massaging her shoulder. Jyn ducks her head and falls back into place, watches the next sparring team take their place. She spots where Min over extends her arm trying to disarm Tymon, whose at least two heads taller than her, and how Tymon leaves his right side open to attack. Buros calls them out on both and that at least eases some of the tightness in Jyn’s gut, a worry born from remembering all the resources at the Empire’s disposal and how little this rebellion has in comparison. 

Jyn tries her best not to draw attention to herself, wants to disappear into the mess of the Rebel Alliance as much as she can. To the new recruits she's just Erso, the name itself meaningless to them. If any of them know how she came to the Rebellion no one's asked her about it to her face, which might have something to do with her displays on the training mat.

"You playing nice with the kiddies?" Makkal asks her, and Jyn snorts under her breath, sidesteps a swing of Makkal's truncheon. "Most of them are older than me."

Makkal grunts, lunges again, Jyn blocks her blow, ducks and swings low. Makkal jumps back, catches Jyn in the side with a glancing hit. “So that’s a no then.”

Afterward they sit at the edge of the mat, sharing sips of water from Jyn's canteen. The base is quiet, night shifts never quite as busy as day ones when they aren't on high alert. It's almost nice. 

"Any word from Cassian?" Jyn asks, wiping her hands dry on her knees. Her shirt sticks to her back with sweat, her side just beginning to hurt. It'll bruise, she's nearly sure of it, but it’ll be fine otherwise, the pain a lesson to learn from. 

Makkal shakes her head, but her eyes prick Jyn's face, their steady focus unnerving.

Jyn goes to tug on the end of her braid and misses it by inches, still growing use to her shorter hair. During the day she keeps it pinned in a knot at the back of her head like other female recruits according to regulations, but during her free hours she still wears it in a single plait the way she has most of her life. (If Mama saw her now, would she even recognize Jyn as her daughter? In her ill fitting soldier’s fatigues and a blaster on her thigh. Jyn thinks not even Papa would know her though it hasn’t even been two years since that night Eadu. She feels like she’s shed her old skin and grown a thicker hide, rough and indelicate. But she feels more their daughter than she has in such a long time, trying to be brave like they always asked her to be.) 

She doesn't mean to worry. Worrying won't accomplish anything, won't keep Cassian safe wherever he is. But it eats away at her regardless, a wiggling eel in the pit of her stomach. She hasn't seen him or heard word from him since they parted ways aboard _The Farragut_ months ago. She wonders if he knew when he left that the rebels were headed for Dantooine, wonders if he'll come here when his mission is over. Draven is here, which gives Jyn reason to hope and fear simultaneously. 

("The general does not like you." K-2SO informs her, loading supply crates onto the ship that will carry him and Cassian away. He sounds irritated by the fact, perhaps because he likes Draven about as much as he likes Jyn and sharing anything in common with the man costs him some measure of pride. "I believe he is bothered by the nature of your relationship with Cassian. It has proven impractical.” 

"Do you agree with him?" Jyn asks, partially to prove a point, pushing a heavy crate up the boarding ramp as best she can until K-2 heaves it up in his arms without any difficulty. 

"Cassian suggested I should not speak if I do not have anything courteous to say." 

Jyn rolls her eyes so hard it almost hurts, "And when have you ever taken that advice to heart?")

"I'm afraid Intelligence plays it close to chest. There's not much that comes out of there that isn't pried loose by tooth and claw." Makkal says in a quiet, disaffected voice, closing the canteen tightly.

It’s a disappointing answer and Jyn frowns in response, ducks her head close to her chest to hide some of her displeasure but apparently not quickly enough. "You care about him." Makkal says, and it isn't in that drawling teasing voice that she uses when she calls Jyn private or heckles her to try harder on the range, it something smaller that borders on worried in its own right. 

Jyn rubs ineffectively at the sweat drying itchy on her face, hopes the redness left over from drills will hide the heat she feels creeping up her neck and over her cheeks at Makkal's words. 

Amadna Makkal never reminds Jyn of her mother, but sometimes, in the quiet place she slips into when there's nowhere else that 's safe for her to go inside her head, Jyn wonders if the two women would not have gotten along with one another. They share a stillness under the surface of their skins, an iron will, a fire-forged courage and stabbing perceptiveness that proves dangerous to the unobservant.

Jyn falls on the training mat and Jyn gets back up just the way Mama taught her to, the way Makkal expects her to.

She thinks briefly of troopers on Eadu, making fun of her as she got older, trying to rib her out her silences and brooding. 

("Are you sweet on Jaffery?" A pink-faced trooper with watery blue eyes whispers in the mess, his sweat-dark hair clinging to his forehead now that his helmet rests on the seat beside him. "Or maybe you want to sneak a note to Tulod?" 

"Leave her alone Kax." A pilot snaps from father down the table, oily hair falling over his face as he bows his head over his tray and keeps his eyes fixed on his food. Jyn clears her own tray and escapes as the troopers started heckling the pilot, sneaking away unnoticed and still hungry after her interrupted meal.)

"He's my friend." Jyn says, trying hard not to sound as defensive as she feels-- her spine shivers reflectively, like a cornered tooka primed to pounce--presses her lips shut to keep from snapping. “Rebel spies are allowed to have friends aren’t they?” 

Makkal tosses back the canteen, runs a hand through her already mussed hair. It's growing out now, curling behind her ears. Makkal keeps complaining she's close to shaving her head. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“No,” Jyn says, the word hot on the tip of her tongue, shoulders tightening, “I don’t.” It’s been four months now and there hasn’t been a single word from him and Jyn runs drills and fills her days studying weapons she helped inventory aboard _The Farragut_ and back on Kieva, training with recruits who are older than her in years but who make Jyn feel ancient, who make her itch with impatience and bottled frustration. There’s a blaster—her very own blaster now—on her thigh and a rank in front of her name but Jyn is still just waiting. Waiting for the Empire to strike and waiting for Cassian to return. Waiting for word that he’s not coming back. She feels stuck, like her feet are buried in the mud back on Lah’mu and every attempt to break free and take off running only sucks her deeper into the mire. 

Makkal takes to her feet, chews her mouth, her perpetually unruffled exterior creasing slightly with the gesture. She runs her hand through her hair again, sets in standing in an unruly halo around her head. “Serving is a contradiction.” She says shortly, “That’s what no recruiter will ever tell you. The whole thing is just a mess. You’re supposed to pick up a blaster and charge into battle for the greater good, fight for the people at home and the people beside you, but then you’re supposed to be able to watch those people fall and keep on fighting. Simple as that.” She shakes her head, incredulous, a small humorless lilt to her lips. “You fight like your life depends on it and all the while you’re supposed to understand your life isn’t worth the lives of an entire galaxy. When it comes down to it, it’s a numbers game Erso, you and them. You never come out winning.” 

Jyn swallows, her earlier anger cooling under the wave of confusion Makkal’s speech brings on. She stares at her, her untidy hair and hard eyes, the black band on her middle finger stark and sharply defined as ever. “What’s any of that got to do with me or Cassian?” 

Makkal shifts, braces her feet, “Do you know what I liked most about you when we first met? I could tell you weren’t going to let anyone turn you into a martyr. Andor, he’s a good soldier, a great one, but he’s been in the thick of it too long. Practically born to it.” Jyn opens her mouth but Makkal holds up her hand, “I don’t mean it as an insult. I only mean—he’s the kind of person who’ll do anything for the cause. Believe me Jyn, I know the type. And that kind of thinking Jyn, it doesn’t always factor in the people who actually care whether you live or die. The people who have to carry you after you’ve given everything you have for the greater good.” She drops her hand, “You’re his friend, and I know what you mean to him, but if it ever came down to it—” Makkal looks so uncomfortable Jyn wants to advert her eyes entirely, wants to tackle her to the mat and take a swing, anything to alleviate the terrible weight of the words coming out of Makkal’s mouth. “I don’t want you to be hurt the day he can’t choose you.”

Jyn drops her eyes finally, stares at the dusty threadbare knees of her fatigues. “Who didn’t choose you?”

Makkal laughs, a thin, brittle spiral of a sound, it uncoils in the air around them with a tinkling chime of cracked glass. “No one I bother thinking about these days Erso.” She crouches in front of Jyn, eyes unbearable, too keen, too knowing. “I don't know about you but I'm starving. On your feet private before those flyboys get all the decent grub.” 

-

“Erso, a word.” Buros gestures her over and Jyn hangs back, watches the other cadets file back towards the base. 

“You bored, private?” 

Jyn shakes her head, “No sir.”

“Tired then?”

She wonders if it shows on her face. She hasn’t slept well for days, has spent her nights lying stiff on her bedroll listening to her barrack mates breathing. Makkal’s stiff warning keeps echoing in her head no matter how hard Jyn tries to shrug it off, at odds with the oil-slick worry she feels whenever she lets herself think about the days and weeks and months since she last saw Cassian. It’s all piled atop her frustration, the bubbling annoyance that underlies everything she does these days. Jyn just shakes her head again. “No sir.” 

“I heard a rumor about you Erso.” Buros says, starting back towards the base assuming Jyn will fall in at his side. 

“Nothing too bad, I hope.” She says before she can stop herself, nervousness spiking in her belly. 

“Guess that depends on who’s listening.” Buros says blandly, nodding at another officer as they enter the base. “Personally, I’m only bothered to have wasted a resource for this long.” Jyn stares at him, eyebrow lifting. “Starting tomorrow I want you to help me during hand-to-hand training.”

Jyn’s face is beyond her control, her mouth parting in surprise before she can press her lips together tight. She squeezes her hands at her sides, “Sir?”

“You’re good. I’m not flattering you when I say so, it’s the just the truth. You’ve got a natural aptitude for it, not to mention you’re a bit ahead of the rest of the class. I think you’d be a greater help to your comrades by assisting them than by scaring them witless every time you’re supposed to face off.” 

“I—I—” she stumbles over the words, licks her lips in an effort to get some moisture back on her tongue. “I don’t know what to say sir.” Buros grins, and it transforms his face, like a layer of dull wax has been peeled off. 

“You don’t have to say anything. Just report tomorrow ready to help. Got it?”

Jyn nods vigorously, feels something that comes close to legitimate excitement for the first time in ages. “Yes captain.”

-

Helping Buros helps Jyn. It gives her something to do, even when she isn’t in the middle of her own trainings, they meet and discuss how the rest of the cadets are coming along, who needs more help, who shows real improvement. It isn’t long before Jyn’s also assisting with weapons training, her year of working under General Zyphera coming in handy when it’s time to explain standard rebellion weaponry. It smooths over some of the jagged edges snagging Jyn’s mind in the last month, helps her settle in a way she hadn’t thought she needed. 

Helping Buros has another unsought after side effect Jyn didn’t forsee. Other recruits start talking to her. She doesn’t necessarily talk back, doesn’t know what to say half the time anyone addresses her outside of training, but she still finds herself with a gaggle of new rebels suddenly sharing around her during mealtimes. There’s Demaia Vobal, a wiry built woman Jyn was often paired with in sparring lessons whose family fought in the Clone Wars, and Shanna Min who Jyn doesn’t know very well at all other than what she sees in combat training. A good shot and a quick learner. Alongside them is Calo Tymon, tall, solidly-built, unerringly kind and nearly always talking, he makes Jyn nervous for reasons she doesn’t fully understand. She hasn’t had much experience with people like him. Tomo Nise is older than any of them, soft-spoken and quick with a blaster, centered and a calm in a way that would remind Jyn of Cassian if it weren’t for how she isn’t sure Tomo wears his own calm as a mask. 

“Can I ask you a question, ma’am?” Tymon asks her one day, staring at her with his usual earnestness. 

“Don’t call me ma’am.” Jyn says flatly. Suddenly, it isn’t nearly as fun to think of doing this to Makkal. Tymon nods but then barrels right on through to his question. “It is true you were held captive on Coruscant by the Empire’s hand until you fought your way out and that you stowed away on a pirate ship to escape?”

Jyn’s too surprised to utter more than a sharp. “What?” 

The cadet sitting on Tymon’s other side, Shanna Min, slaps his arm. “Shut up Cal. I told you that was a load of bantha dung.” She turns towards Jyn, “She just defected like half the fleet.” She moves her head like someone used to having hair to toss for emphasis, “Isn’t that right, Sarge.” 

Jyn glances down at her shoulder. She wonders if these people haven’t familiarized themselves with rebel ranks yet to have not noticed she wears the same number of pips as they do. 

“You look too young to have defected.” Vobal cuts in, leaning over the table to join the conversation and accidentally putting her elbow in her protato mash. 

“I didn’t—” Jyn starts, startled to hear herself speak at all. She clicks her teeth together, appetite gone. “It isn’t really any of your business.” 

Tomo, whose been silently observing this entire exchange looks up at her when Jyn moves to stand. “Don’t—we’ll go.” He gets up, picks up his tray and stares at the other three until they do the same. “Sorry about the intrusion, Jyn.” He nods at her, apologetic and sincere, leads the rest of them away. 

The next day Tomo approaches Jyn alone. “We won’t sit with you anymore if you’d prefer the privacy.” He says without greeting, standing opposite Jyn where she’s finishing the last bits of fresh bread she saved to dip in the drippings off whatever meat it was the kitchen staff found to feed them. “It’s just—we thought you might like the company, sometimes.” _Since you’re usually alone_ doesn’t need to be spoken for them both to hear it. It makes anger flare bright in Jyn’s throat, because she doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone, least of all Tomo or anyone of these nosy cadets, prying into her business and offering her companionship out of pity. Jyn’s been alone most of her life, and she’s disappointed in herself if she can’t tolerate it now, with Makkal busier than ever and Cassian Force knows where, even K-2 a lingering absence at her side. But Tomo stares back at her with unflagging patience and not a hint of judgement of in his eyes and he truly does remind her of Cassian then, back when they first met and he seemed almost indomitable to her before Jyn learned to recognize the cracks that threaded across the façade of him. It’s like a missing molar, a survivable loss but the reminder of it remain persistent, throbbing just under the surface of her skin.

“I don’t like questions.” Jyn mumbles, glancing down at her greasy fingers. She’d lick them if Tomo wasn’t watching. (Krennic always expected manners and it was only Papa’s eyes that kept Jyn from acting like an animal when all she itched to do was grab a handful of food off her plate and toss it at him, his smug face and impeccable white uniform.)

“Okay.” Tomo says agreeably, nodding partially to himself. “That’s okay. We won’t ask questions.” 

The next day the four of them are back at Jyn’s table. Min mentions something about the bird singing outside her barrack window. Tymon sighs that Min at least has a window. Vobal asks Tomo if he’s going to eat the rest of his jellied root and stares at Jyn when she offers her her own portion. Vobal spears it with her fork and sets in on her tray. “Thank you.” She says, almost shy. 

“Don’t mention it.” Jyn says, eyes dropping back to her own food to continue eating. 

And so it goes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! We're reaching the half way point of this fic and I'm super excited about where its going (please don't hate me!). 
> 
> I want to take a moment to thank all of you for reading. I know I'm super behind on replying to comments but I do want you to know how deeply I appreciate each and every one of them. 
> 
> Thank you all <3

There’s a supply drop scheduled to a small rebel posting on an outer rim moon. Buros calls it a milk run with an unimpressed air, but he calls Jyn's name when he's assembling his team and looks at her for confirmation that she’s heard him. "Don't expect this'll be terribly exciting but I understand you've never been off base in an official capacity. It'll be good.” He says afterward, when it’s just the two of them preparing for the next day’s lesson. “Give you a chance to get your feet wet."

He's not wrong. It borders on boring, flying in a cramped shuttle to a humid moon covered in thick red dust and jagged peaked mountains. The sun looks like a wrinkled globe overheard, the sky bleached to a pale yellow. The whole place makes her squint, her eyes hurt from looking any one direction too long. She's dripping sweat by the time they've located the rebel outpost and left their cargo— _Not enough_ , Jyn thinks, staring at the gaunt faces of men and women and other assorted beings in their dusty fatigues, their skin coated with sweat and red dust turned to a kind of streaky paste, they didn't bring nearly enough for them to do more than survive here—and then it’s the hour long trek back towards their shuttle.

They're all skittish, the five of them, Buros at the head of their party and Jyn near the rear with Tymon and the two others selected. They jump at a cracking sound in the distance, startle at their own shadows as though troopers will appear out from under their own feet. 

No one fires a single blaster bolt. Jyn learns she sunburns terribly.

When Makkal sees her back on base she laughs so hard and so long Jyn almost doesn't recognize her. 

-

One week slides into another, into another, into another. There is another mission, just as dull but significantly less humid, though the one that follows that one takes them all to a swampy mess of a planet, the air so thick it’s almost impossible to breathe. Everyone on the mission contracts what the med droids diagnosis as damp lung.

Jyn gets stuck in medbay. Her bed is sandwiched between Tymon and Min, who hacks even in her sleep, her thin rattling breaths trickle into Jyn's dreams so that all she sees behind her closed eyes are rebel bombers sweeping over the rain-slick platform back on Eadu. She's never been happier to return to her barrack than she is after that, happy for her thin bedroll and her bunk mate's snores if it means she doesn't dream of Papa lying still any longer. 

(One night she wakes choking on her own breath and a stilted cry of horror, can still see Cassian lying prone on the floor. It's Eadu until it isn't, until it's the crowded corridor back on Kieva, the burning wreckage of _The Farragut_ , the swamplands of JVJ-24601. But it's always Cassian on the ground, unmoving, always Jyn leaving. Jyn running away.)

-

It's on Jericho V that Jyn fires her weapon for the first time out in the field.

They're scouts most likely, the three troopers wandering the shambled streets of the township they've been sent to (another supply drop, but this time they’re charged with picking up materials in exchange. No one has said what exactly it is they're picking up but Jyn recognizes some of the sigils scribbled on the side of the crate from her time working in inventories. They’re blaster parts most likely, nothing high artillery but most definitely needed in this war). She and Vobal are still waiting outside the clay-brick home where Buros and the others are making the exchange when the troopers white armor comes into view. 

Jyn tenses, palm resting over the butt of her blaster for reassurance and Vobal's eyes dance over to her, a question in the crook of her eyebrow. Jyn shakes her head.

Her fingers twitch to reach up for her mother's kyber pendant. Jyn wants to duck into the nearest alleyway, wants to disappear into a dimly lit doorway, fights off every instinct in her body begging her to run. _They're not here for you_ , she tells herself. _They're not here for you._

Jyn tracks the troopers out of the corner of her eye, keeps her hand steady on her blaster. She exhales. 

"They're headed this way." Vobal hisses, struggling to keep up the pretense of examining her dirty nails. 

Jyn's heart triples its pace, kicks so hard against the restraint of her ribcage she can feel it rattling in her teeth. "Don't stare. Let them pass. They've no business with us." She whispers out of the corner of her mouth. 

There's plenty of people around them, cluttering around the odd assembly of vendors that makes up the morning market on Jericho. There isn't an impressive Imperial presence here, not even a fully constructed outpost. Jericho is not an important piece in this game, a reason Jyn suspects played a role in selecting it as their exchange spot. She glances at Vobal through her lashes, her short brown hair pulled back, clothes dirty and worn and creased like every other civilian wandering the streets. Even the holster at her hip isn't out of place on Jericho, where people know it’s best to arm oneself than risk the chances. Nothing about them screams rebel soldiers, there's no reason to attract the stormtroopers' attention. 

_Don't look, don't look, don't look_. Jyn repeats over and over inside her head, squinting out at the pale-grey-white morning. _Don't look, don't look, don't look_. (She doesn't know if she means it for Vobal or the troopers or herself, but she wills it with the entirety of her trembling heart.)

The troopers walk by them without a turn of their helmets, but neither of them drop their guard. Jyn watches the troopers wander into the market goers until they disappear from view and Vobal waits for her signal before she slips inside. There's no knowing if and when the troopers will come back, they have to move fast. 

They almost make it back to the ship. 

There's blaster fire and a scramble for cover, but Jericho is a wide flatland covered in sparse thorny bushes that don't over much, and there's no choice but to run, run and shoot over their shoulders at the troopers on their heels. A bolt grazes Jyn's shoulder, a sharp searing burn that lances through the muscle but she doesn't cry out, she doesn't stumble, she turns and locks sight on a charging trooper and returns fire.

The blaster recoils in her hand with a flash of red. The trooper falls, body spilling out over the flat cracked land with a thud, an uncoordinated clatter of plastoid armor colliding with the packed earth beneath. “C’mon, c’mon.” It’s Tymon, pulling at Jyn’s arm, trying to get her moving and she stumbles over her own feet, remembers what it is to run. Her shoulder burns, her heart pounding in her ears, in her throat, behind her navel. She runs, Tymon at her shoulder, one hand pushing at her back. She hears it, the gutted exhale, the hollow blow of a body hitting the ground. Tymon’s hand falls away and Jyn turns, pistol aimed and ready to fire, pulls the trigger again and again. Tymon doesn’t move, still lying face down on the ground and Jyn tries to go back to him, but the troopers are still coming and someone else is pulling on her, drawing her away. 

Jyn keeps shooting until her blaster is empty. 

The interior of the ship is too quiet, too dark, too still by comparison, and Jyn sits against the bulkhead and tries to remember how to breath. She'd almost forgotten, after all these years, she'd almost forgotten the sound Mama made when she fell, the sound of her body falling to the soft muddy earth where Papa sowed seeds that never grew and Mama taught Jyn the names of different stones and minerals. Mama lifted her arm and fired and the troopers cut her down with a single blazing bolt and she fell, disappeared into the grass as though she'd never stood there at all and Jyn heard her fall like she heard the trooper today. Like she heard Tymon. The hollow thud, the rattling impact of a body going limp all at once. In her head she sees Mama fall like she has a hundred, a thousand, a million times before, but all she hears is the trooper's armor rattle against the dry flatlands, the last sharp gasp Tymon breathed when the bolt hit him. In her lap her hands shake. 

-

"I heard what happened out there." Makkal says quietly, sitting beside Jyn outside the gate, watching the sun descend over the lush green forests on Dantooine. "Buros said you did good." 

_I could have done better._ Jyn thinks but all she does is shrug. She regrets it almost immediately.

"How's the shoulder?"

"It's fine." Jyn answers, eyes following the falling sun. "It barely touched me." They gave her some bacta gel for it, not enough to keep it from scarring but enough that there’s no doubt she’ll make a full recovery. Jyn's on light duty until then. 

She'll be fine. (Tymon is lying on Jericho, on the same thirsty earth as the troopers Jyn killed.) 

“Did you know him?” Makkal asks, knee touching Jyn’s briefly, shifting just a little closer. 

Jyn shakes her head. Calo Tymon. Never good at guarding his right side. Endlessly kind. “Not well.”

Makkal’s arm presses against Jyn’s uninjured arm. Her breathing remains steady in Jyn’s ear. The sun flares gold and amber in the sky.

Jyn closes her eyes with a shuddering breath. She sees Mama fall over and over again, hears Tymon’s last breath as though it were her own. 

-

Jyn is helping General Zyphera with inventory when Tomo finds her. "Captain Makkal says you're needed in hangar two." He says, taking off before Jyn can do more than thank him for delivering the message. 

General Zyphera dismisses her with an absentminded wave of his hand, distracted by his datapad as usual, and Jyn goes with a sloppy salute. The hangar's buzzing with people, with ships, with droids and chatter and the thrum of engines warming up and cooling down, the metal and fuel taste of exhaust thick in the air. Makkal’s stark silver hair is nowhere to be seen but Jyn stops looking for her after a courtesy sweep of the area. 

She doesn’t call out his name or run towards him this time, doesn’t throw herself into his arms. Cassian doesn’t notice Jyn staring, not at first, seemingly absorbed in his conversation with K-2, gesturing towards the ship they must have flown in on. 

All at once it seems like the space between them empties, and she doesn’t know if he spots her before she approaches or if he catches sight of her once she’s within arm’s reach but their eyes meet and Jyn feels rooted in space. Not stuck, not trapped, but grounded, like some part of her that has been flying free has come back into its proper orbit. 

He’s back. He’s home. 

(It isn’t until later, lying on her bedroll under her scratchy woolen blanket that smells of sweat and sleep and dust, that she feels the full weight of the word on the back of her tongue. Lah’mu and Kieva and Dantooine.) 

Seven months feel like a lifetime and nothing all at once. Like it was only just yesterday that she saw him. But there’s so much to tell him, so much he doesn’t know about. (She glances down at her hands and Mama falls, the trooper’s armor rattles against the hard-baked dirt and Tymon exhales.) She wants to tell him, all these months of quiet bottled up and finally he’s here and it isn’t a crack ruining the face of a dam, it’s an outlet, a way to alleviate the pressure before the whole structure ruptures. Jyn stares at Cassian and her heart leaps into her throat in a way that makes her lightheaded, makes her want to cry from something other than sadness. She doesn’t know the name for it, but it burns inside her belly and sets her whole body alight. 

"You cut your hair." She says stupidly, taking in all the changes he’s brought back with him. He’s thinner still—she worries if Cassian goes away again for this long he’ll disappear into nothing, evaporate into little more than shadow and air—and there’s an odd sallowness to his skin, like he hasn’t seen the sun in a long while. His hair’s shorter and there's stubble shadowing his face where before he’s always been clean shaven. Cassian rubs at his jaw self-consciously. 

"So did you." He replies, reaching towards her like he means to tug on the end of her braid but then stops himself, lets his hand fall away. His eyes are still glued on her face. 

"Are you two just going to stare at each other?" K-2 asks and Jyn's too full to even scowl at him. Force, it’s good to see them both again. "We have things to unload, if you wish to be helpful."

"Kay—" Cassian’s grin is almost timid, like he's forgotten the expression. 

"I think he missed me." Jyn says cheekily, glances up at K-2SO’s impressive bulk, the dominating way he takes up space without hesitation or regret and feels the urge to press her palm to his cool metal chassis. She looks back at Cassian and smiles to see his grin grow less rigid, his eyes less guarded as he stares back at her. 

"He won’t admit it but I know he did."

K-2 sputters. "I am not programed to miss anyone but if I were it most certainly would not be Jyn Erso."

Cassian's shakes his head solemnly but there's something burning just behind his features, familiar and lovely after such a long time without. Jyn feels as though she’s been struck by another blaster bolt, but the heat of the blow is practically painless, barely a sting rippling under her skin. She doubts it’ll leave a mark. 

"You should have heard him go on Jyn,” Cassian says, voice curling with an unseen grin, “It would have broken your heart."

Jyn presses her hand to her chest, but there’s no pretending, her heart thumping erratically under her palm. "Oh Kay, you shouldn't have."

"You two should not be allowed around one another." K-2 pronounces with his rigid finality before lumbering his way back aboard the ship to continue unloading. 

“I—” Jyn starts once they’re alone again, but suddenly without K-2 there their earlier teasing falls just out of reach, the space between them full of an anxious energy that doesn’t suit them. I missed you. Jyn thinks, just one thought out of a hundred possibilities. _I missed you_ and _I thought you’d never come back_ and _I killed someone like someone killed my mother I’m no better than any of them_. “It’s good to see you again Lieutenant.” She says, hoping she doesn’t sound half as shy as she suddenly feels. 

Cassian blinks back at her, mouth twitching, the movement too diminutive to tell if it might have been a smile or a frown or something in between. She wants to touch him, curl her fingers through his and pull him close, hold him like she did hidden inside _The Farragut_. But there are so many eyes here, and the prickle of apprehension behind her navel holds her back. 

“Good to see you too Jyn.” It startles her somehow, to hear her name out of his mouth when she half-expected him to play along, call her private now that he can. 

He makes another move towards her, hand reaching for her own (there are bruises on her knuckles to match the ones on his), but before he touches her K-2 is back, lugging a crate. “I expect this kind of behavior from Jyn but honestly Cassian I expect better from you.”

Cassian pulls back, rounding towards K-2SO. “Sorry Kay, I’ll be right there.”

Jyn scowls at the droid. “What happened to droids are superior to organics in every way?

K-2 shrugs, utterly unapologetic in every way, “It’s still true.”

“I’m going to help out here,” Cassian shakes his head. “I have to debrief but I’ll try to find you later—”

”I’ll help.” Jyn says, stepping forward towards the ship’s boarding ramp, “Get you to your debrief faster.” _Find me sooner_ , she thinks, but keeps that to herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small secondary note:  
> I got a new job (yay!) and I'm starting a credentialing program (eh) so there might be longer periods between updates moving forward but know that I'm still working on this. 
> 
> Thank you again!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the well wishes on the new job, you're angels.

Cassian is waiting outside her barrack that night when Jyn returns. K-2 is nowhere to be seen and in his absence Cassian looks somehow smaller, his shoulders narrower and his limbs lankier. He’s always been a beam compared to her, tall and lean, but he looks wasted away now, unhealthy and hollow. It almost hurts to look at him. 

He takes to his feet when he hears her approach, smiles nervously at her and Jyn doesn’t know what to make of the feeling that fills her from deep in her gut, something panicked and fleet-footed, running circles as though seeking an escape route. “You weren’t in the mess, I thought they might have sent you away again.” She jokes weakly, crossing her arms to keep from worrying her hands. 

He tilts his head slightly, his smile softening until it disappears. “No, just, not very hungry.”

You look like a good punch could break you in two. Jyn doesn’t say, shrugging instead. “Fair enough. Haven’t got any more cargo to unload tonight do you?” 

Cassian shakes his head, “No. And I’ve already spoken with General Draven about my missions.”

Jyn looks at him, tries to disguise how critically she’s assessing the state of him. He looks dead on his feet but he’s here instead of wherever barrack they must have assigned him, here talking to her instead of taking what looks to be sorely needed rest. “Have you ever been here before?” Jyn asks, making up her mind then and there. “On Dantooine, I mean.” She tips her head towards the wall, the base, the world that lies just beyond their walls. 

Cassian ducks his head, scratches at the back of his neck. “No. This is a first for me.”

“C’mon then,” Jyn says and this time she gives into her earlier impulse, reaches for his arm and curls her fingers around it, the creased soft leather of his jacket is warm under her palm. “I’ll give you the tour.”

-

They don’t stray far from base. Nightfall is fast approaching and the last thing Jyn needs is to get them lost out in the forest without anything but the blasters at their hips and each other. Though, she thinks, watching Cassian carefully sit on a patch of dark damp earth, picking at the tree bark nearby and plucking at wide, glossy leaves, maybe they could do with getting lost, if only for a little while. 

They sit together in silence that is almost comfortable. 

They talk, they’ve known each other now for almost two years, they know how to carry a conversation (and an argument), but there’s a comfort to going without words, one Jyn’s always appreciated in their time together. Living in isolation doesn’t make for a great conversationalist. 

She’s always been clumsy with words and Cassian perhaps too sly with them at first, too at the ready to fill in the gaps with smooth words that sounded all wrong in Jyn’s ears. They’re both better now, Jyn readier to trust herself when she needs to say something, more willing to trust he’ll listen to her no matter how poorly she puts it together. And it’s been ages since Cassian felt compelled to speak for the sake of speaking, better able to tolerate letting silences stand. (“Don’t tell him I said this, but K-2 and I have that much in common. Neither of us is looking for small talk.” She says, staring Cassian square in the eye, only months into their friendship everything still feels something like a test. “I’m glad to hear it.” Cassian chuckles, awkward in his own right and the tightly clenched fist at the base of Jyn’s throat relaxes just a little more.)

Jyn takes a seat beside him, leans against the tree trunk at her back. She hasn’t been out much since they returned from Jericho V, though that wasn’t a decision she remembers making. It just seems to have happened. When she looks up the sky is an orange canvas framed by a ring of tree branches, the sight of it as sorely missed as the boy sitting at her side. 

She wants to ask him where he’s been. What he’s done. What happened to him. But that isn’t a part of him she’s ever been allowed, not even now that they fight for the same master.

“What color was the sky?” Jyn asks him, keeping her eyes fixed up over their heads. “You don’t have to tell me where, just, I used to wonder, when we first got here. What color the sky was wherever it was you were.” 

Cassian’s arm brushes hers as he redistributes his weight, leans back against the same tree trunk, slouches until their shoulders brush. There’s a light thud as his head hits the tree bark, she catches the skyward tilt of his chin in the corner of her eye. He’s silent for so long Jyn wonders if he’s fallen asleep. The sky deepens in color, turns to honeyed amber with the first hints of the oncoming night seeping in around the edges. 

“It was…nothing like this.” Cassian starts gently, “It was. It was an old miners’ colony. The people there—there wasn’t much. Not food or supplies. Definitely no sky.” Jyn remembers the faces of the rebels she saw on that outer rim moon, painted with dust and sweat, their eyes hungry for more than just food. 

“And you were there? This whole time?” Jyn breathes.

“No, not the whole time. First I went—I was needed elsewhere.” He bites the word short. “But then word came of a chance for recruitment. Alliance sympathizers make valuable allies, you understand, especially in certain quadrants of the galaxy.” A former miner’s colony. Jyn doesn’t know what strategic value there is to it, perhaps she’ll ask K-2 for a lesson in tactical planning. “They were reluctant at first. Didn’t want to get involved at all. These people…many of them came for a separatist planet…they had no love for the Old Republic. It took a lot to convince them the Rebellion wasn’t interested in returning us to the old ways, just in getting rid of the Empire. I promised them everything I could. Supplies. Food. Medicine. Things I don’t think were in my power to promise them but I couldn’t—I couldn’t stand to think of them there. Living under all that rock for the rest of their lives hoping to escape the Emperor’s notice.” 

She takes her eyes off the sky, glances at him. Jyn pictures him, locked up somewhere dark, cold, removed from the sun. In her mind’s eye the nameless colony looks like Eadu, with the sky all blocked out. (“You deserved better.” He said to her once, what feels like a long time ago in a faraway place, and she wonders at him, at this unrelenting belief he has, this terminal hope that drives him to give everything in the name of securing better for everyone but himself.)

Jyn closes her fingers around his wrist, feels the bones shift just under his skin. 

Cassian blinks, face still turned away from hers. “The Empire found them. I heard—Kay and I were only a day out when we intercepted the transmission. I’m not—there’s no knowing how they found them. If they followed me or what. But the whole colony…it’s…they’re gone.” (“They killed my family.” “They killed mine too.” Unalterable as a star in the sky, a history written in their marrow, etched in their bones by Imperial fire as though it were always a part of them, a destiny they were only ever going to uncover.)

A fist squeezes tight around her throat, freezes the breath in her lungs. I’m sorry feels so useless on her tongue.

She rests her head against his shoulder, and Cassian grabs at her hand where it covers his wrist, pulls her closer until her arm is almost across his chest, his fingers holding hers close. It strains her shoulder but the pain is nothing compared to the ache locked tight behind her ribs. “I could have done more.” He whispers, squeezing their hands tight, “I could have.”

She turns her face against his shoulder, breathes out. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know that there is anything worth saying, the weight of his guilt familiar to her now in a way it never could have been before. There’s blood on both their hands, Jyn thinks, people they couldn’t keep safe. Cassian’s chin bumps against the top of her head. He exhales. There’s the hum of an X-wing ascending in the distance, and Jyn listens to it, pictures it rising and then disappearing from the darkening sky. 

-

Jyn half expects Cassian to disappear again. She steels herself for it, tells herself this is what it means to fight a war. Cassian might say this is what it takes to win one. It is watching him leave and waiting to hear the worst, it is raising her blaster and knowing every comrade that falls could have just as easily been her. That there’s no saying the next time it won’t be. 

If she falls who will know?

Tymon had a mother and father and sisters, Min told her as much. Somewhere in the galaxy are people to mourn him, who will remember his name and what he died fighting for. If Jyn dies there will be no one to tell. Only superior officers to cross her off a roster. A sleeping space to reassign. _Will they tell you?_ She wants to ask Cassian from time to time, working beside him in these odd interim days that feel like an entirely different kind of waiting.

Cassian stays, carries out the responsibilities assigned to him as part of light duty without a whisper of a complaint, and Jyn feels—

She feels like a child sneaking a sweet, like at any moment someone will notice and take him away. He isn’t hers to keep. Jyn knows that. Forgetting would be setting herself up for disappointment. Jyn knows that too. 

-

K-2SO comes and goes at his own discretion, sometimes to help with some of the manual labor required by a given task and sometimes only to complain about boredom. “Can’t you power down?” Jyn asks, partially annoyed by his incessant whining while she’s oiling the dismantled pieces of a blaster. Armory grunt work isn’t the worst but they’re confined in small quarters, hunched over a workbench with a pile of parts all in various stages of functionality. Personally, Jyn doesn’t think there’s any saving the piece Cassian’s working on, no matter how much elbow grease and hope he pours into it but he’s been a man on a mission since he found an old A280-CFE blaster in their lot. 

“Why can’t I assist with weapon maintenance?” K-2 asks Cassian, ignoring Jyn outright, even when she tosses a ratty rag at him. 

Cassian sighs, eyes still fixed on the task at hand. “Because the council hasn’t come to a decision about arming droids.” He says it with an air of disapproval and Jyn knows better than to assume it’s all directed at K-2. Cassian’s funny opinions about droids are many. If Jyn ever doubted how good he must be at what he does, the fact that he’s allowed to keep K-2 around without modifying his personality or behavior would be enough to convince her that the Rebellion values his contributions enough to grant him that much leniency.

K-2 and Cassian argue in circles, their dry back and forth providing a background murmur that Jyn vaguely follows as she works. Every now and again, after Cassian makes an especially good retort to K-2SO’s more pedantic arguments, Jyn glances at Cassian out of the corner of her eye, grin tugging at her mouth. Some of the color has returned to his face. Protato mash doesn’t have much to recommend it in terms of flavor but it does the job, packing nutrients into every mouthful. Between the food and their not in frequent trips out into the Dantooine sunlight, Cassian looks closer and closer to human every day. 

He hasn’t spoken to her any more about whatever it was that happened out there, the places he’s been or the things he did—not even the things he thinks he didn’t do—and Jyn can’t even begrudge him that when she’s kept her own lips sealed. Her initial urge to tell him everything that had occurred in his absence, to purge herself of the weight of it at once, has turned into a prickly panic that hooks Jyn’s tongue in place. Jyn’s made guess work at what it is Cassian does for the Rebellion and while she wouldn’t be so naïve as to think he’s never killed a Stormtrooper with his own blaster, telling him she’s done as much is proving a difficult task. The thought that it might change what he sees in her turns Jyn’s insides cold. He’d been so adamant she’d wait to enlist, that she didn’t need to be out on the battlefront in order to assist the rebel cause. 

What if, Jyn worries in her worst moments of self-doubt, Cassian was drawn to the parts of her made soft by confinement, the weak, defenseless girl the rebels plucked out of a cell on Eadu. What if the person she’s become isn’t one he wants to bother with. 

“Jyn?” Cassian says, calling her name like he’s been trying to get her attention for a while now. 

“She’s ignoring you, Cassian.” K-2SO says, because he’s terrible. Jyn scoffs. “No, that’s usually your go-to move.”

“I don’t ignore Cassian.” K-2 retorts, tilting his head as though Jyn must be out of her mind.

“Except when you’re bored.” Jyn says flatly, catching Cassian’s eye. He shakes his head, still looking down at the blaster he’s working on, “Or when you don’t like what I’ve said.” K-2SO makes a quiet contemplative hum somewhere within his chassis. He walks out of the armory without acknowledging what either of them has said. 

When Cassian laughs it’s almost enough to erase the last seven months from his features. 

-

She knows where she’ll find him. He doesn’t sleep any better on Dantooine than he did on _The Farragut_ or anywhere else. It’s earlier than even she rises to train alone with Makkal, the sky still a cool grey-blue, barely the first suggestions of dawn breaking on the farthest horizon, but he doesn’t disappoint, running what could easily be his hundredth lap around the farthest perimeter of the base. His face is flushed and sweat-streaked, his chest heaving even as he slows to a jog as he catches sight of her. “What brings you out this morning?” He puffs, coming to a full stop, hands braced on his hips. 

_You._ Jyn almost says, but there’s a boldness required by the words that not even the early pre-dawn twilight can offer her, so she keeps her silence, thrusts her hands into the pockets of her fatigues. “I want to show you something?” She says instead, “If you’re available.”

Cassian gives her a self-deprecating grin, “I’m nothing but time these days.” (He hides it better than Jyn does, but he’s restless too, doesn’t seem to know what to do without the urgency of more demanding responsibilities.)

“C’mon then.” Jyn says, turning on her heel and taking off without waiting to see if he’ll follow. Even before she hears his footsteps fall in line behind her, she knows he’s there. 

“Do I get to know where we’re going?” Cassian asks, voice lilted with curiosity. Jyn cracks a smile, calls over her shoulder as they cross into the surrounding forest. “That’s classified Lieutenant.” 

“How long have you been waiting to use that one?” He chuffs. Jyn quickens her stride. “Keep up.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy labor day y'all! 
> 
> I official survived my first week as a lead teacher! *collapses in exhaustion*
> 
> Bless all y'all, your kind words and excitement keep me going 
> 
> xoxoxoxo to infinity and beyond

Somedays Jyn will think:

_This is how it happened. That is when I fell in love_

and pluck a single perfectly preserved moment from her memory. The sight of him walking down a landing ramp. His tired eyes and familiar smile over oily cups of caf. Morning runs and sparring sessions and long quiet moments. She will remember the smell of his clothes and the feel of his arms around her in an embrace. Too few, always too few, too far between, but their rarity makes it easier to recall if not easier to remember. Jyn will remember Dantooine, Cassian’s coarse fingertips on her skin, cold and fumbling with nervousness.

Less frequently Jyn will indulge in a memory that is more dream than reality.

She will remember Cassian, standing across from her on the ship that carried them away from Eadu, dripping rainwater, offering her a moth-eaten jacket, a stranger turned soft beneath her mind’s eye by nostalgia. 

( _Is that when it happened?_ Jyn will barely wonder to herself, as though pinpointing the moment will allow her to erase it, to pull the thread of it out from the tapestry of her heart as though it had never been a part of it all. It doesn’t matter she will almost always decide before putting all thoughts of the matter away, locked up tight beneath the sealed hatch door where Jyn will still keep memories of Mama and Papa and Lah’mu and Makkal and Eadu and everything that came after. _Is that when I fell in love?_ )

Most days Jyn will try not think of Cassian at all. 

But that comes after.

-

The lakes on Lah’mu that Jyn remembers best were salt water. Mama explained it to Jyn, why the water tasted like tears when Jyn slipped beneath the surface, but what Jyn remembers now isn’t the name of minerals but how Mama told her to lie back, her arms braced under Jyn’s back and knees until Jyn was brave enough to ask Mama to let her go. (“I’m here. You’re safe.” Mama said, smiling like Jyn rarely remembers seeing, “See Jynnie, you’re floating all on your own.” But she never strayed far, always within arm’s reach, the grey sky wide open overhead, Papa watching from the shore as Mama taught Jyn how to swim. On Eadu Jyn would lie on her back and stare up at the grey ceiling, remember the endless sky and Mama’s arms beneath her, close her eyes and pretend. Pretend. She pretended until even that hurt more than it helped.) 

The lake on Dantooine is different and the first time Jyn tried swimming she sank, the water pulling her down before Jyn learned to push back, before she found a way to float on her own all over again. 

“How did you find this place?” Cassian asks, eyes widening just a little, just enough for Jyn to notice his surprise. 

“Buros brought us running this way a few times before the rains made the path impossible. I suppose he’ll be dragging us this way again now that it’s dried out some.” 

“I don’t suppose the rain stopped you.” Cassian says lightly and Jyn shrugs, tries to blot out the uneasy feeling that bubbles up in her, seeing Cassian standing at the edge of the water. How many times had she imagined this? Bringing him to this place, sharing this with him (Cassian has shared every part of himself that he can with Jyn. She knows that now. He offered her a place in his home when she was just a frightened child with bruised knuckles, he put a blaster in her hands when he knew he couldn’t remain at her side to protect her, he’s helped her find purpose, shape her life into something more than empty spaces and silence. Even when he’s away, Jyn doesn’t feel alone, not the way she once did. She wants, Jyn wants—)

“It nearly always rained on Eadu.” She says, shivering at the memory of rain, of thunder in the distance melding into the engine roar of TIE fighters. “The dry season lasted maybe three standard weeks, if that. One year I don’t think it stopped raining at all.” It just fell and fell. Jyn used to sit at a window and watch it fall in sheets so thick she imagined they were impenetrable, like an iron curtain closing them in, another security measure like the duracrete walls and armed guards. She learned to hate the rain on Eadu. “I wasn’t going to let a little thing like rain stop me here.”

Cassian cracks a thin smile, “Is there anything in the galaxy that can stop you?”

Jyn feels herself flush under his attention, holds herself still. (Jyn wants. It beats inside her bloodstream, steady and irritatingly persistent, something she wishes she knew how to ignore. She wants: to be brave as Mama and smart as Papa and strong like Makkal and kind like Tymon. And Cassian. She doesn’t know what it is she wants from Cassian—she wants him near, wants him safe, wants him alive, whole, happy—Jyn wants for Cassian and from Cassian things she doesn’t know by name, in a way that makes her insides soft and warm and malleable as a cube of room temperature protein, wibble-wobbling on a tray. The danger of it cuts through her, strikes her to the bones. 

“Do you swim?” She asks, trying to ease his attention elsewhere. Now it’s Cassian’s turn to blush, color curling around the tips of his ears, rising in his cheeks. “No.” He says, his voice thinner than she expects and when he shakes his head he does it with a self-depreciating chuckle. “No, I haven’t had the chance to learn.” 

Jyn raises an eyebrow, curiosity peaked by the almost bashful tilt of his chin. “That’s uncharacteristically unprepared, Lieutenant.” 

He huffs a small laugh, looks at her with caution coloring his eyes. “We all have our weaknesses.” 

It’s Jyn turn to laugh nervously, stamps her heel into the soft dirt under her boot. 

(“Sorry, are you giving me tips on how to punch you better?” “It’ll lessen your chances of hurting yourself is all.”) 

She watches Cassian’s face carefully, mesmerized by the way the rising sun brushes over his features. This is how he should always look, she decides, out beneath the sun. He belongs in a place like this. Safe. She wonders how long she can keep him here.

“Want to do something about this one today?”

-

Cassian emerges out from beneath the surface of the water with a gasp, sends water everywhere, it sparkles midair, catches bits of sunlight and sends them glittering down on both of them. Jyn laughs, slaps at the water so that it hits him square in the face and he reels back, sputtering, still trying to get his breath back, wiping water and hair from his eyes. He missteps, again, and disappears back beneath the water. Jyn’s laughter turns into a shriek when something—someone—grabs at her ankle and tugs, pulls her down until there’s nothing but cloudy lake water in her vision and the pressure of being submerged in her ears. She finds the lake floor with the pad of her foot and kicks back to the surface, finds Cassian already waiting for her, hair standing in a hundred different directions and face alight with mirth. 

“Do that again and I leave you to drown.” Jyn threatens without heat, splashing him in the face again. Her lesson has devolved into little more than a water fight since Cassian figured out how to tread water, but Jyn isn’t nearly as strict a teacher out here as she is back at base. They trip back and forth from spots near enough to shore that Cassian can reach the lake floor if he needs to, using his unfair advantage in height to get the better of Jyn. She doesn’t know that either of them is keeping any kind of score but its brought out the worst of their competitive streak.

Jyn swims past him quick as she can with her under clothes weighing her down, laughs and wiggles when Cassian grabs her around the waist and falls backward, pulls them both under. He’s boney at her back, thin and wiry the way she half-imagined he would be under his clothes, but his arms are strong, hold her steady until they twist apart, rise again gasping for air. Jyn kicks him in the thigh and Cassian’s hand closes around her ankle, keeps her bobbing in place.

His fingers squeeze just above the knob of her ankle, once, twice, three times. She wonders if it’s a coded message, concentrates on the pressure behind the touch and not the way her skin feels like its fit to burst. (Jyn hasn’t been this naked in front of someone outside a communal fresher Jyn since she was small, since those long-lost days when Mama or Papa still had to scrubbed her clean after long afternoons spent digging holes out in muddy fields.) 

“Who taught you how to swim?” He asks, squinting at Jyn under the risen sun. It feels good on her shoulders and on the back of her neck, warm against all the places the water chill can’t keep cool.

Jyn bites her lip, licks a drop of lake water from it. “My mother.” She says finally, reassured by the hand at her ankle, the sun on his face. (This is how they should always be. Safe. Together. The war can forget them, can’t it? It can spare two soldiers barely older than the war itself, leave them to this peace. Jyn wants more than just about anything for that to be true.) “Before—before they found us—where we lived—it was green. Not like this—but—green. There were hills everywhere. And lakes. We lived near the ocean—it was—massive. Far as you could see. Looked black even under the sun and it smelled—I can’t even describe it. I’d never seen one before. I used to watch the salt collect on the stones, y’know, and Ma—my mother wanted to teach me how to swim in case I ever fell.”

“And she did.” Cassian says, another pulse of his fingers over the bone of her ankle. His mouth curls into a messy smile, but his eyes are pensive. Almost hungry.

Jyn nods. “She did.”

“She did a good job.” Cassian says, and he lets her go, leaves Jyn anchorless. She stretches out on her back, face tipped skyward, water lapping at her ears. Her skin breaks into gooseflesh everywhere it’s exposed outside the water.

“She was good.” She says quietly, closing her eyes. The impression of the sun remains a sharp pinprick on the back of her eyelids. “When they found us she tried to stop him. Krennic. He killed her.” She rises and falls gently as Cassian agitates the water coming closer. Jyn doesn’t open her eyes. “He kept saying he was taking us home. All of us. He had his men take her aboard his ship. They buried her on Coruscant.” Mama hated Coruscant. Jyn was only a child when they’d fled but she was aware enough to know that, remembers her mother’s unhappiness like a cloud darkening their every day there. “She’s probably still there.”

Where was Papa? On Eadu? Had the rain washed his body off the platform. Was he buried at the foot of some mountain, lost to a ravine. Had troopers buried him? Could someone have cared enough to send his body elsewhere, back to the prison he’d escaped with his wife and daughter. Had anyone cared enough to lay Galen Erso next to Lyra? Jyn would probably never know now. 

“I met a man—Alej. Alej Moremo—he said knew my father.” Cassian’s voice starts and stops like a faulty engine, like there isn’t enough fuel to sustain it. When she looks at him he’s crouched in the water, only his head rising over the surface. Their eyes lock and Jyn nods, prompts him to go on. “He recognized me. I didn’t—I didn’t know him at all but he recognized me. Said I looked like my father. And I didn’t even know him.” 

“Your father?” Jyn asks, still floating. She waves a hand over the face of the water, the pinkie grazes Cassian’s shoulder.

“I didn’t really know him either.” Cassian says softly. (“Everything I do, I do it to protect you.”)

“If he was anything like you,” Jyn tells him, brushing against the curve of his shoulder again, “Then he must have been very good.”

Cassian’s face flickers through a dozen different emotions, they skip over his features like a flat stone skips over still water, and then he sucks in a deep breath and disappears again under the surface of the water. 

-

“Fest had glacial lakes. Has. I guess they’re still there. Probably.” Cassian shrugs, leans back until he’s sprawled out on the new grass beside her. Lying down she can’t see the bruise healing on his back, oblong like a boot print, or the raised, puckered scar that graces his side, long and thin. A blade wound if she had to guess, though there’s no saying how old it is.

(He touched her shoulder when she first pulled off her tunic, his thumb ghosting over the lasting mark left behind by the blaster bolt she took on Jericho. She goes back to regular duty in two days according to the med-droid, she found out last night. Cassian touched her shoulder and asked her if it hurt, his voice full of worry and regret and Jyn had forced a smile and told him there wasn’t any getting out of learning today. Now she wonders if she can return the favor, if she can reach her fingertips out and touch his side, trace the length of the mark on his side, follow the edges of the bruise on his back, find all the other places this fight has left it’s fingerprints on his skin.) 

The sun is at its highest point now and Jyn’s stomach rumbles sullenly. They’ve missed their morning duties entirely and will likely miss their next mealtime even if they start back towards base at this very moment. Neither of them have made any attempt at moving. They’re both good at ignoring hunger, Jyn knows that.

The sun warms Jyn but her wet clothes are still soaked against her skin. They’d dry faster if she peeled them off and laid them flat on a rock or hung them from a tree branch but Cassian burned pink when Jyn pushed off her pants, she thinks he might very explode into pyrotechnics if Jyn made a move to do as much now. She wonders if it’s the result of growing up the way she did, the lack of inhibition she feels about her body. It’s hers, she decided that a long time ago, reaffirmed it every time Krennic sent a package full of imperial grey and pristine white cloth, dresses and skirts and blouses better suited for a doll than Jyn. It’s hers to do with what she wants and to share how she wishes. It isn’t shame she feels when she thinks of letting Cassian see her.

“So too cold for swimming.” Jyn mumbles, growing ever drowsier under the hot sun. 

“Too cold for a lot of things.” Cassian says. “My sister—” He pauses, hesitation stiffening his limbs where they press against Jyn’s. “Sarra used to lie in the snow sometimes and make snow stars. She’s sort of go like this—” He tries to demonstrate on the grass, splays his arms and legs wider, brings them back towards himself. It rouses Jyn a little. She hums at the back of her throat, swats at him with her hand. He grabs it, perhaps to stop her, but Jyn tangles their fingers together, leaves their hands locked together in the silver of space between their bodies. 

She doesn’t ask where his sister is now. (“They killed my family.” “They killed mine too.” A fixed point, unmoving as a star. The kind of truth that set the course for the length of the life that followed after.)

“I’ve never seen snow.” Jyn admits, tightening her grip on his hand so that he remembers where he is, who he’s with. Wishes there were a way to tell Cassian he isn’t alone without having to move her mouth. 

“I’ll take you someday. Somewhere you can see snow.” He says, so quietly Jyn wonders if he meant to say it at all. She turns towards him, finds him already staring back at her. His eyes are soft, the sadness tempered by a fondness so clear Jyn’s heart stutters to a stop, picks up clumsy and uncertain like it’s relearning all the proper steps. 

“I’d like that.” She says, rolling on her side. She has to let go of his hand to do it comfortably, but Cassian mirrors her positions, their knees bending towards one another until they’re pressed together. The grass prickles and the water laps gently just a few feet away, the sun keeps watch over them both.

“You’ll be sick of it in a heartbeat.” Cassian warns, grinning wryly.

“We’ll see.” Jyn shoots back, holding Cassian’s gaze until his eyes drop closed. She watches him for a long minute before following his example. 

She’s near the edge of sleep when she hears his voice again, so soft it blurs into a whisper. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

Jyn cracks her eyes open, heavy-lidded, warm. Her hand crawls over the grass and finds his again, her touch rouses him enough that he looks back at her, dark eyes slit open just enough to see her. He’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. “You deserve better too, y’know.”

Cassian blinks at her, startled, slow, and Jyn squeezes at his hand, wills him to believe her. Trust her. His eyes slip closed again but he leaves his hand beneath hers.

-

This is the truth:

Jyn Erso falls in love with Cassian Andor a hundred times in a hundred different ways. It happens when he returns to her after a lifetime of leaving, when he laughs at her jokes, when he bickers with a droid. It happens when he describes snowstorms and flurries and tells her something in a quick-cadenced language Jyn’s never heard before and doesn’t undertstand a word of. It happens at bedsides in medbay and in the sparring ring, the firing range, in supply closets and under the dismantled engines of rebel ships. It happens with his hand on her face and Jyn’s fingers slotted through his, in the early mornings and the late nights. Their quiet moments and in their sharpest fights. It happens and it happens and it continues to happen until Jyn feels as though there’s no part of her that isn’t stitched close to him, and even the half-shadowed parts of him aren’t enough to scare her into keeping a careful distance. 

Jyn Erso falls in love with Cassian Andor a hundred different times in a hundred different ways and doesn’t know it until she’s in the middle of it, until there’s no way to pull away without leaving some part of herself behind. 

That is the truth. 

There is no consolation in it. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for hanging in there with me and this crazy what-if scenario that's eaten my brain! Hug and kisses to you all :-)

They walk back to base with the sun sinking on their sunburnt shoulders. Their stomachs growl in protest every few steps, the only sound that accompanies the rustle of their trek through the forested grounds. The tension she wanted so desperately to bleed from Cassian’s spine returns in increments, amasses until he’s standing ramrod straight again with the base within sight.

Jyn wants to take his hand, wants to draw him back into the safe obscurity of the tree line.

(Jyn wants—Jyn _wants_ —)

But Cassian steps forward before she can reach for him, walks towards the base without hesitation.

“They’re going to ask where we’ve been.” He says softly, mouth barely moving. “Let me do the talking.”

Jyn scowls, jogging to catch up with him, “Don’t be stupid. I’m telling the truth. You’re not talking the fall for this.”

Cassian frowns, shakes his head. “Jyn—you’re going back to Buros tomorrow. You want that don’t you? Let me do the talking and you won’t be wasting your time cleaning the kitchens for a week.”

This isn’t a fight Jyn wants to have—the lake feels lightyears away already, the sun and Cassian’s laughter, the reassuring feel of his arms around her as her pulled her under the water—but it’s one she’ll have without remorse or mercy. “If you think I’d rather go back to—”

“Erso! Andor!” Jyn spins on her heel, whips towards the figure fast approaching them from the base entry gate. It’s Makkal, her silver hair catching the last of the orange light. “About time. I was starting to worry you’d gotten eaten by something out there.”

She eyes them both, their rumpled clothes, their untidy hair and something seems to pinch around the edges of her face. She clears her throat. “General Draven is asking for you Lieutenant.” Makkal says, addressing Cassian with odd formality, her usual dry humor missing from her voice.

Cassian’s face goes inscrutable even to Jyn’s eyes and he nods, hands already folded behind his back. He gives Jyn a final look, dark eyes burrowing into hers, a final attempt at convincing her to keep her silence. Jyn meets his stare head on, wills him to understand why that isn’t something she can do.

Makkal doesn’t watch him go, her eyes still fixed on Jyn. The weight of her stare presses against Jyn’s belly, and she feels for a single moment as though she were back on Eadu, pinned under her father’s eyes after being forced to sit through another lecture from Krennic or some other Imperial lackey power-mad and inflated with self-importance. 

(“Stardust,” Papa sighs and he sounds so disappointed in Jyn that she almost feels shame at her misconduct. She twists her hands into knots in her lap and fights the urge to promise she won’t do it again. She doesn’t want to lie to Papa too. “Stardust you can’t go on like this. You mustn’t try them.” Fourteen years old and Jyn is old enough to understand that pawns are expendable in this game, that she’s only as good to the Empire as she is a willing victim of their plots. The day she becomes too great a distraction to her father is the day no one will hesitate to shoot her. They both know it. Papa fears it. Jyn remembers Mama lifting her blaster and wills herself to be brave.)

“Follow me private.” She says shortly, turning on her heel.

“Makkal—”

“No need for an explanation Erso. Just walk.”

-

Jyn’s face is still burning when she slumps onto a narrow bench seat in the mess hall. It’s emptier than it is at Jyn’s usual meal times, which suits her fine. She doesn’t particularly want to look anyone in the eye right now. Instead she keeps her eyes glued to her tray, the slightly congealed slop of noodles heaped in the middle. She touches the tines of her fork to the pile and frowns. All her earlier starvation’s been burned from her belly.

(She hears less than a minute of what the med droid had to tell her before she pushes past it and chases down Makkal, still making her way away from the medbay where she deposited Jyn moments beofre. Makkal only stares Jyn down until Jyn’s hand drops from Makkal’s bicep and Jyn’s face flushes with embarrassment and anger, curls her hand into a fist she tucks away against her ribs, arms crossed protectively over her chest. Inside her heart beats startled and nervous. “I was kept by Imps, not monks. I know how children are made.” She starts defensively, and Makkal frowns, eyes narrowing. Jyn feels impossibly young, not in the starlight bright way she felt this morning, floating on her back, but the way she does at times when her inexperience hinders her, in the moments when she fully feels how much she’s missed in the eight years of living inside the steel and concrete walls of Eadu. “I’m not—” Jyn adds, heart hooked on the tip of her tongue. “Cassian and I—we’re not—you know we’re not—it isn’t like that.” 

Makkal holds her hands up, “Like I said private, I don’t need an explanation. But the last thing any of us need is another complication to account for in our lives. A baby would—”

Jyn can feel her face grow warmer. “There won't _be_ a baby. We’re not—”

Makkal runs a hand over her scalp, her silver hair shorn short again, “How am I supposed to know that? The two of you disappear for a day and come back looking like you do? And Draven just _miraculously_ remembers he signed off on leave for you both when people start looking? ‘Must have misfiled it.’” Makkal snorts derisively. “If that man has ever misfiled anything in his life I’m a Hutt.” 

That bit of information does stop Jyn short and she curses herself for giving as much away, Makkal’s nodding to herself in confirmation. “That’s what I thought.” She says, dropping her arm and resting her hand at her hip just over her blaster. “If he ever tries anything—anything Jyn, anything that you don’t approve—you tell me."

"Cassian would never--" she stops, incredulous she's even having to have this particular conversation. "There's nothing to stop, you know that right? We're not—"

"I don’t care if he begs you not to, I will—”

“I think I can shoot him myself.” Jyn finally snaps, hoping it’ll alleviate the horrified embarrassment that’s crawling up her spine.

That stops Makkal short. “Now I know I’ve taught you better. You can do a whole lot more than shoot him. But I’m being serious Jyn, you can tell me.”

_You’re not my mother_ , Jyn almost grounds out, impatient and ready to be over with this particular brand of embarrassment. She hasn't had very much experience feeling this way. 

Wasn’t it just hours ago she felt steady inside her own skin, ready to strip bare for Cassian’s eyes without a second thought. Her body is her own to do with as she wishes. The only thing she has in the galaxy that is well and truly hers. But the thought Makkal has put forth burns in her belly, twists and turns on itself, makes her lightheaded. Not sex—or rather not just sex. Sex with Cassian—but a child, a tiny thing Jyn’s seen in holos and in some of the places they’ve gone to on missions. A child that might be hers and might be his and would be theirs, only theirs. To share. To lose. Is that what she wants? Is that—)

“Is this seat taken?” She nearly chokes on a mouthful of noodles when Cassian appears at her elbow, his own tray clutched in his hands. He looks nervous, tinged with color born from more than a long day out beneath the open sky. Jyn coughs, croaks out a thin invitation for him to sit. There’s room on the opposite side of the table but he slips into place beside her, his knee knocks against her thigh as he settles into place. 

“How badly did you meeting with Draven go?” Jyn asks, twirling another stringy spool on her fork. Whatever sauce was added to the noodles is solidifying more and more with every minute, turning into a lumpy pale lavender mess. It tastes strongly of fish. 

Cassian pushes his own food on his tray and Jyn marvels at the motion. He isn’t one to play with his food. “Not bad at all. He—”

“Misfiled our leave request. I heard.” Jyn says, just loud enough to be heard. Cassian turns to look at her, eyebrows furrowed. He nods with a slight drop to his chin, eyelashes distractingly long when he adverts his eyes. “Yes. He’s sorry about that.” Cassian mumbles, and Jyn bites her lip to keep from laughing. Cassian’s an excellent liar but even he’s not good enough to sell this lie. “He wanted me to tell you it won’t happen again.” Cassian sounds genuinely apologetic. Jyn believes him, his regret and Draven’s sincerity. He won’t cover for either of them again. 

“He had a report for me.” Cassian starts again after a few mouthfuls, killing whatever fledging hunger Jyn had left. The words squeeze her stomach tight, make the food she has eaten sit like a stone. 

“Oh.” Jyn ducks her head. “When do you leave?”

Cassian taps his utensil against the side of the tray. It chimes softly. “Not for a bit. They’re still waiting on some more information, trying to figure out the best plan of action to proceed.”

Jyn nods. Her mouth is full of the briny taste of whatever it is she’s eating. Her stomach aches. She eats another mouthful to mirror Cassian. Wasting food is an unthinkable offense, one even the disquieted rebel in Jyn doesn’t think of flouting. Each bite seems to stick in her throat. 

-

Jyn returns to Buros. Cassian remains on light duty for another two days before he’s assigned to a desk in communications. Jyn’s never worked communication duty before, isn’t overly sure what it requires other than the seemingly endless hours shut away somewhere on base, but there’s some consolation to knowing he’s still near, still somewhere under the same sky as her even if she doesn’t see him every day anymore. 

Makkal calms back into her usual bone-dry disposition, though Jyn’s first morning back on the training mat finds her knocked flat with Makkal’s knee pressed against her sternum, the wind rattled out of her lungs. Jyn can’t help but feel like Makkal’s trying to prove a point, but she can’t be sure if she’s trying to prove it to herself or Jyn. Still she helps Jyn off the mat and shares a meal with her after, and the next day, and the next. She doesn’t bring up the topic of Cassian and Jyn together in that kind of way again. 

Her life returns to its former routine. She trains and helps train and eats her meals with Min and Vobal and Tomo (the space where Tymon used to sit is closed off by Min and Tomo, but Jyn sees it all the same). She throws herself into the work, that still comes easily enough, easier still whenever she catches a glimpse of K-2 in the corridors and knows Cassian can’t be too far away. 

-

Jyn’s been back on duty two weeks when she’s given her first mission since Jericho. “You up for it, private?” Buros asks quietly, attention wholly devoted to the datapad in hand. Jyn taps her own stylus against the screen in front of her (a final recommendation for a new cadet, namely reassignment to noncombative duty) and holds back a scowl. “Of course, sir.”

There is no ready. Jyn knows that. She remembers her last morning on Lah’mu, her last meal on Eadu, the last time Tymon sat between Vobal and Min at their table. She remembers them all and how she had no way of knowing they were the last. 

Buros nods, still not looking at Jyn and whether that’s courtesy or distraction is hard to say. “Good. We’re leaving at 0600, I expect you to report awake and ready at least an hour prior so we can discuss logistics.” 

Jyn salutes him when she’s dismissed, turns almost all the way out the door before she stops. She bites her lip, uncertainty just beginning to sour at the back of her mouth. 

“Erso?” Buros acknowledges her after a few seconds that seem to ring in Jyn’s ear alongside her racing heart. “A problem?”

“A question.” Jyn clarifies, taking a step closer. She wants to worry her hands, pick at her ragged nails and pull up the skin there until blood beads along the nailbed. “Sir.” She tacks on, trying to find some stability in the formality of the title. It has mixed results. 

Buros prompts her to continue with a small nod, puts his datapad down and gives Jyn his full attention. She taps her fingers against her leg before she can stop herself, curls her fingers tight. “I don’t have any next of kin, sir.” She says, fumbling over the words. “And I was wondering, if there was—what the protocol was in situations like mine.” Jyn thinks of Cassian and wonders who will know, who will tell her if the worse comes to pass. 

Something in Buros plain face softens and its too much like pity, the thing Jyn sees staring back at her. She bites the inside of her cheek and wonders if she ought to have just kept silent. 

“Someone should have gone over that with you when you enlisted.” He says, rubbing at hand over his sharp chin. 

“My enlistment was—uhm—it wasn’t entirely by the books, sir.”

Buros stares hard and then picks up his datapad again. "The phrasing is largely a formality, you understand. So long as you have a way of reaching an individual you have free reign to designate whomever you'd like." He taps something into the device in his hand. "They'll be notified eventually. I don't think it comes as a surprise that things around here don't often operate as smoothly as one would hope." He gives her wane grin, extends his datapad towards her. "If anything were to happen under my command, Erso I'd be the office responsible for sending word. I try to do that as promptly as possible. I've never seen the point in leaving people waiting for someone who isn't coming back." 

Jyn swallows hard, accepts the device from Buros and stares down at the screen. The form she sees is no different from any of the other forms she had to fill out when she enlisted, nondescript and unimpressive to behold. 

"I'll forward you a copy. Take your time." Buros takes back the datapad. He adds, mostly speaking to himself, "There's still time for that."

-

She asks around until she finds him. Communications is largely stationed at the heart of the base in a single long corridor, the floor and ceiling of which is threaded with bundled cords of wires. The entire place seems to run a few degrees warmer than the rest of base, and Jyn’s barely a few steps down the hallway when she starts to feel sweat collecting at her temples. K-2 is stationed at one of the doors, the only marker that distinguishes one comm room from another, but he’s the only sign she needs.

“Do you ever just power down?” Jyn asks him, rapping her knuckles to his chassis and only partially in the hopes of annoying him. She likes the solid thud of him beneath her bones, even if craning her neck to meet his optics is a pain in the neck. 

“Cassian might need my help here. I will power down when he rests and has no need for assistance.”

“Aren’t you allowed in there?” Jyn asks, motioning towards the closed door. K-2SO whirrs. “Some of the other soldiers assigned here have voiced discomfort in my presence. I have tired explaining the probability of my malfunctioning is only at 34 percent but it did not seem to comfort them.” 

Jyn chuckles, presses her knuckles to K-2 again with a grin. “Bet they loved hearing that.”

“Cassian says humor puts organics at ease but the ones in there must be faulty.” 

Jyn’s grin widens. “Yeah, that must be it.”

She ducks into the room before K-2SO can really get going. The air inside the room is even hotter than the air in the hallway, full of the murmur and drone of dozens of machines crammed in a tight space. The lights hum overhead, dim and brighten at random intervals, they flicker in Jyn’s eyes. The length of the room is packed with narrow desks and tall computing banks and recording instruments and consoles Jyn can only guess at, soldiers stationed at each and every one hunched over their work. The consoles cast a pale green light on their faces, and in the dimmest moments their features seems sunken, their eyes gleaming in half-shadows. 

That’s how she finds Cassian, shoulders hunched forward and head bowed, so absorbed by whatever he’s listening to on his headset he jumps when Jyn touches his arm. He taps his finger against one side of his headset with a shake of his head and Jyn nods, leans against the hard edge of the narrow console and watches him work. 

She tries to pick up the pattern of his movements, but there’s little for her to catch hold of. His fingers fly over the console after a moment’s waiting, agile, quick, and she wonders how many times he’s filled this role that he doesn’t fumble once. Finally his fingers slow and come to a pause and he removes the headset. “I haven’t got long.” He says to start, apologetic but firm, and Jyn straightens, glances around at the other rebels still at their stations. A few curious eyes dart away when she meets them, but most of them remain fixed on their tasks. 

“Figured you’d be chained to your work,” she jokes blandly, mouth softening just a little out of the brittle line it hardened into when she saw the state of him. Eyes exhausted and skin waning again. Jyn wonders how long he’s been here. “I’m heading out tomorrow. Supply drop somewhere in the Quarth system. Buros doesn’t seem too worried. Milk run.” She shrugs. “Just wanted to tell you—didn’t think I’d catch you out there before—” Jyn waves her hand. She wonders if it was always this hard for Cassian to tell her when he was leaving, this uncomfortable and unsure. 

This might be goodbye, she thinks before she can stop the thought from forming. This might be—

“Jyn,” Cassian says, turning more fully to face her. “That’s—” He stops, swallows. His eyes drop to her hands, his head drops, face bowed and hidden from view. She wants to touch her palm to the crown of his head, cup his chin and lift his face back towards hers. ( _A baby._ Jyn thinks blindly and without warning, like a flash flood that pulls her under, leaves her choking. Cassian’s mouth on hers and his hands on her waist and Jyn pulling on his dark hair. A life built between them all their own rather than cobbled together from the shrapnel and ruins inherited from their parents’ wars.) 

“You’ll be careful out there.” Cassian says softly, and Jyn reaches, curls her fingers over his shoulder. He looks up then and Jyn waits to catch his eye before nodding.

“I’ll see you soon Cassian.” She says, and she hopes with everything inside her that it’s a promise she’ll keep. 

-

It’s Makkal who finds Jyn on the hangar floor while she’s inspecting her pack one more time before boarding the shuttle that’ll carry them away from Dantooine. 

“Got a notification this morning.” Makkal says, standing over Jyn. Jyn’s hand barely stumble over the fastenings of her pack, double checking it one more time to make sure everything is secure. “Should I have asked you first?” Jyn asks, perhaps too little too late. “I can change it—”

Makkal shakes her head, eyes sharp when she looks Jyn square on. “No need for that. I just—I figured Andor would be your first choice.”

Jyn bites her lip. She’d thought of it. 

She gnaws on her lower lip until it stings, licks at the bead of blood that collects on the surface. “You’ll tell him won’t you?” She doesn’t elaborate, knows Makkal can hear what isn’t said between the words. Jyn needs to know that someone she trusts, that Cassian knows, will be the one who tells him if something happens to her. (When something happens. The inevitability of it hovers at her back, a weight she carries with her every day.)

“You know I will.” Makkal says. She surprises Jyn by squeezing her arm, pulling her into a swift, brutal hug. She doesn’t linger, pulls away before Jyn can reciprocate in kind. 

“Watch your back out there Erso.” Makkal orders. She tosses Jyn a mocking salute before she goes, Jyn’s skin warm all over with the force of her parting embrace. 

-

The second moon orbiting the planet of Quarth has only one distinguishing feature that separates it from its sister moons. Like all the other moons in the system its surface is covered entirely in water, the majority of it inhabited by marine life. What sets the second moon apart, according to the briefing Buros provides on the shuttle ride over, are the tunnels that hollow out a large portion of the planet’s core. 

The tunnels are an eerie place, leaking and damp (there’s an echoing drip in Jyn’s head, a cave, a hatch door, gravel embedded in Jyn’s palms and her heart trembling in her throat as she remembers Mama falling over and over again). What lights there are down there are far and few between, not nearly enough to combat the darkness that crowds every inch of the place. The occupants of the tunnels are a mix of natives—strange aliens Jyn’s never seen before, with wide feet and large flat hands, a thin membrane connecting the fragile bones of their fingers and large bulbous eyes—and whatever rebels have made a home for themselves there. 

There’s an exchange of information, datachips traded amongst hands an supplies swapped between both parties. It's barely more than a day before they’re departing again, sodden and sick of the stale recycled air pumped throughout the network of tunnels hidden beneath the waves. It still doesn't feel soon enough. 

Jyn shivers the entire shuttle ride back to Dantooine, can’t seem to get warm no matter how tightly she curls into herself in her corner of the ship. She drifts off at some point, dreams of waiting at the bottom of a pit, rainwater dripping down on to her face, dripping and dripping, filling the small crawl space as she waits—Mama and Papa told her to wait, told Jyn to keep still and keep quiet and promised her she would be safe so long as she could do both—but no one ever comes and she drowns. 

“Erso.” She snaps awake, back stiff and legs sore, the smell of mildew still ripe in her nose, finds herself staring at Tomo, his unworried brow and careful eyes. “We’re nearly back.” He says simply, offering her a hand and levering her off the shuttle floor.

There's nothing for her to do as they prepare for landing. For all the skills Jyn's learned during her time as a rebel piloting isn't one of them. She'll have to change that soon, she decides, jittery in her seat as the shuttle shakes through its landing sequence. Cassian can teach her, she thinks, though the thought is chased by a less pleasant one. 'If he's around long enough.'

The shuttle jerks hard and Jyn tightens her grip on the edge of her seat. At the very least the shaking proves a distraction. 

-

This is how he finds her: 

Standing in a hallway, hands clenched into fists to keep them from shaking. She can feel the tremor of it in her arms regardless, dancing in her bones, stringing her muscles tight. She locks her knees to keep from buckling, feels hollowed out, like she'll cave in if she moves, collapse into pieces like a building ravaged by fire. He says her name and the force of it proves too much. The first tear slips before she can stop it. 

She shakes her head, tries to keep him from speaking again. She'll never survive it. 

She bites her lip bloody, teeth aching from the force with which she clenches her jaw, but no matter how tightly she twists her face the tears keep falling, one after the other. Shame washes over, hot, slick, suffocating. She can't breathe for it. 

(The cave under the ground. Mama falls. Tymon gasps. Jyn waits, bloodied fingers bitten between her teeth, she waits and she waits, silent and scared but so still, so still she barely breathes. "Sir, we have something here." The static-blurred sound of a trooper approaching and Jyn watches, horrified as they come closer. She watches, still, so still. Later she'll wonder what gave her away, if she breathed too loudly, if her boots left imprints on the soft damp soil, if she hadn't been careful enough, if she hadn't led them straight to her, failed Mama and Papa both. The trooper falls in a graceless heap of dirtied armor and Jyn's hand can't stop shaking.)

Her knees give way, her shoulders fold. There's nothing left to hold her upright.

She tries to draw a breath but it sticks in her chest, forms a lump behind the hard ridge of her breastbone. He makes a soft noise in his throat, and Jyn doesn't fall. 

"It's alright." He breathes, low against her temple. His stumble scratches over her skin. Her head aches. "You're alright now." His arms go around her. Cassian rocks her or rocks with her, silent and steady and sure. 

Her shaking hands form fists in the back of his shirt. Jyn doesn't believe him, Cassian's a liar born, but she holds on to him regardless, digs her fingers into the fabric so tightly she thinks she'll tear it. 

“I’ve got you.” He whispers, arms tightening a fragment more, squeezing Jyn so tightly it feels like even the shaking in her bones goes still, no place to move now that he’s holding her. “I’ve got you.” 


	12. Chapter 12

She does not tell him everything. 

There is so much to tell and so much more she does not trust herself to tell. Not now, not ever, secrets Jyn’s buried deep inside herself, under the very foundations of her soul, slipped beneath the bedrock of her loss. Secrets Jyn keeps safeguarded in the same place where she's planted the memories of her mother's laughter and Papa's whiskered kisses on her cheeks in the hopes that keeping them hidden will preserve them.

There is so much that even Jyn does not wholly know herself. What Mama and Papa thought or felt or dreamt. Who they were before Jyn came into their lives or who they might have been if the galaxy were a kinder place. There is so much that has been lost to time, to memory, to death.

But she tells Cassian more than Jyn has ever said aloud before, breath hitching in her chest, pain unraveling from behind her breastbone, thin and tight-wound, like a wire that's been pulled so taunt it's begun cutting into the flesh of her. Jyn whispers into his chest and Cassian rubs at her back, circles his palm in tiny increments, strokes her untidy hair, fingertips clumsy at the back of her neck, skimming over the thin skin covering her spine, like he's coaxng the words from her the way a medic might draw infection from a wound. 

She talks about Eadu, the grey slate and shining white armor, the hard lines and sharp edges, the quiet, the loneliness. 

They used to lock her in her room. They would turn off the lights or else keep them burning bright for days on end. They didn't starve her or beat her, didn't inflict any of the hundreds of worse horrors the Empire is capable of, the threats whispered about or alluded to in every lecture Jyn ever received and they meant for her to think of it as a kindness, to be grateful for the half-life she was granted. But the locked door of her room was unbearable to her, solitude a menacing phantom in its own right, her father shut away somewhere close and yet a galaxy removed, as lost to Jyn as Mama. 

She talks about the cave, about waiting, about Mama falling, disappearing like she was never there at all. Jyn rambles about running, the pack on her back a bruising weight and a hatch buried in the earth. "They found me." She hisses, like the words themselves hurt, "They still found me." They found her and dragged her aboard a shuttle and Jyn will never forget her father's face when he saw her, kicking and twisting in the stormtrooper's hold, and Jyn--terrified and wild--Jyn didn't cry, not even when confronted with the sight of Mama lying on the shuttle floor, still and silent and gone. But her father's face, her father's face branded itself into her mind, her bones, her heart, stricken, defeated. And Jyn knew then she'd failed him, failed him and failed Mama and she slumped into the stormtrooper's arms, quiet and limp at long last. 

"No, Jyn." Cassian whispers, voice close to her ear, cheek pressed against her cheek, sharp and roughened but warm, so warm. "You didn't fail anyone." 

_I want them all dead_ , Jyn doesn't say, _I want to kill them all_. It sits like a lump of salt on the back of her tongue, jagged and sharp, sticks in her throat. It isn’t fear that stays her tongue so much as it is the dual desire that runs through her, the only force stronger than the rage that burns inside her, hard and undiminished after all these years. Cassian would understand wrath, Jyn doesn’t doubt it, remembers his face that day at the lake, in the hull of a ship. (“They killed my family.” “They killed mine too.”) 

It presses up behind her navel, a tightly clenched fist striking at her from the inside out. The only thing she wants as much as the destruction of the Empire is to survive. _I don’t want you to die_. She thinks, bitter and urgent, squeezes her hands into fists in the threadbare fabric of his shirt. Imagines Cassian dropping, disappearing into an unyielding dark from which there is no return. _I don’t want to die_. 

She is so tired of death and still sick with shame for fear of it.

“Come on,” Cassian says, tugging her up off the wall, bracing her against his side, supporting her as he starts leading her down the wall. “Let’s go.”

-

The sky is full of stars. Everywhere she looks, starlight stares down at her, glittering and glimmering in the distance, stark white lights in the deep dark of space. Dancing fires, Mama called them once, laughing jokingly, and Papa had laughed to, a secret shared in their glances. Lah’mu was new to them still, but the worry was less tight in their faces, the night sky overwhelming overhead after so long on Coruscant, and Jyn had been half-afraid to look up. 

The grass is cool underneath, prickling Jyn’s neck, and Cassian’s fingers squeeze at hers, hold them close as they stare skyward. They lie on the grass in the shadow of the base and Jyn feels so small, exposed out under the open sky. Cassian’s fingers are thin but their hold is secure, a reassurance in the night. 

_My father called me Stardust,_ she almost says, _that’s who I used to be_. (“Everything I do, I do it to protect you.”) 

“My father’s name was Jeron,” Cassian says, voice soft as the wind that rustles through the tree leaves in the distance. “He fought in the Clone Wars. For the separatists.” He pauses, like he’s afraid of Jyn’s reproach, but Jyn just squeezes their hands closer. Political opinions have always felt like a luxury to her, one she’s never been able to afford. 

“It was Republic fire that killed him. Our home—it never recovered from the war.” He falls silent again and Jyn listens to the quiet, the in and out of his breathing in line with her own, feels the beating of her heart in her veins, the press of their rough palms against one another, the flex of their fingers. There is so much he is not saying, Jyn can feel the shape of the words in the silence, but the impression of them is enough. She wonders what Cassian’s father used to call him before war summoned him. 

The night is long. The stars watch over them.

-

The third anniversary of her father's death passes with as little fanfare as the last.

Jyn is happy to be wading through a bog, waist deep in a slurry of mud and black water, too preoccupied with keeping her blaster dry to give the day much thought.

The same can’t be said for everyone. Min slips and disappears into the marsh with a startled yelp and sucking sound, appears gasping for air and covered in mud thick as tar. She spits up water and curses with equal fervor. Jyn tries to help her regain her footing and hopes her surprise doesn’t show on her face. She’s no wilting damsel, but some of the things that come out of Min’s mouth startle even Jyn, whose grown up around soldiers and officers most of her life.

Min’s ire doesn’t fade even after they’ve left the bog behind them, and she’s still grousing that night, squeezed into the tent beside Jyn. “How is getting us killed in a sinkhole like this going to do anything to the Empire?” The tent walls do barely anything to protect them from the syrupy rain waters coming down through the mossy trees, Jyn doubts they do anything to keep Min’s words from reaching Buros’ ears. “Just doing the Emperor’s work for him.” Jyn doesn’t say anything in response, hopes Min will mistake her for sleeping. Her ploy works too well, maybe, because Min draws in a deep shuddering breath, exhales a wet rattle. “What are we doing here?” She whispers in the dark, and Jyn bites the tip of her tongue tender, “We’ll never win.”

Jyn doesn’t know what they’re looking for out here any better than Min does, Buros less forthcoming than usual when he assembled their team for this mission. Reconnaissance he said simply, but what they could hope to find out here, Jyn can’t begin to guess. The uncertainty adds to the feeling of futility as much as the rain and the swamps and the mud do, and Jyn tries to dislodge Min’s words from her memory. She never quite succeeds.

They spend nearly a week out on that miserable world, slugging through water Jyn tries not to look at too closely and don’t encounter another living being. Dantooine never looks lovelier to her than it does to Jyn’s eyes as their ship descends through the clouds on their return.

Cassian is gone again and she doesn’t linger over the disappointment that sprouts up inside her when she hears the news. Those roots go deep, the feeling could easily branch off and dig into the very core of her, wrap around her insides and choke anything else that might grow if Jyn let it go as it pleases. Instead she helps Min clean her things instead, obtains replacements for what can’t be salvaged. Min doesn’t bring up what she said in the tent again. Jyn is happy to let the words lie. 

Makkal leads her own squadron out into what Jyn later learns was an ambush. When she returns—Jyn clutches her mother’s kyber crystal in her fist and thanks the Force for that, that at least she returns—she does so with more than half her squadron missing, bloodied, limping, silent. Med droids submerge her in bacta for half a day and when she comes out her mood is the foulest Jyn’s ever seen it. Her medical leave isn’t as long as Jyn thinks she needs and she’s placed on light duty within a day. 

“Makkal doesn’t like losing.” Cassian tells her when he comes back, exhausted in his own right. He doesn’t clarify if he means people or missions but Jyn thinks she knows the answer. “She’ll be alright, Jyn. It just—it takes time.” He shrugs, hands busy inside the bulk of K-2SO’s chassis. There are new scorch marks marring K-2’s exterior, but Cassian doesn’t seem too worried now that he’s actually gotten to work. It’s a relief to see some of the tight-fisted dread loosened from his face at least. 

Jyn bites her lip to keep from reminding him that time is the last thing any of them have. Not even K-2 who delights in reminding them of every benefit there is to existing as metal and programming, is promised more time. Watching Cassian work, Jyn know he already knows that. He doesn’t need to hear it again from her. 

-

“Son of a kriffing—” 

“I don’t think you can threaten it into flying.” Jyn says drily, surprising Makkal in the middle of a session that seems to mostly comprise of her fruitlessly banging a wrench against a dismantled engine. 

Makkal drops the wrench with another curse, steps back and braces her scabbed hands against her hips. The bruising on her face isn’t so swollen anymore, the dark blotched discoloration faded even more than it was when Jyn first saw her after her session in the bacta tank. But the hard-bitter edge of her mouth is still as unyielding, her eyes hard as flint when she turns her glare Jyn’s way. 

“You can pick up a wrench and help or you can go find something else to do, Erso. I’m in no mood to babysit.” Makkal shoots back. There was a time Jyn would have taken the bait, when she would have rankled and hissed to have been sent away—even now the words sting, rejection biting at her nerve-endings—but today she bends, picks up the wrench with steady fingers. 

There are things Jyn doesn’t like to think about. She understands the urge to keep busy to keep old regrets silent. 

“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” She asks, and Makkal takes the wrench back without thanks, turns back to the engine. Makkal growls at Jyn to hand her a hypospanner.

Other mechanics in the area are giving them wide berth but no one is outright stopping her so Jyn thinks she must know at least a little about how to keep a ship airborne. She reaches for the hypospanner. 

-

Cassian still runs like there’s something at his back, as though outpacing whatever it is at his heels is a matter of survival. 

Sometimes Jyn joins him, running just as hard as him, boots striking over the firm forest grounds, chest heaving as she pushes her legs faster, trying to keep up but mostly she waits for him to come back. It’s nice knowing he’s coming back. Afterward he throws himself down on the grass beside her, breath slowing back to normal, and they let the silence comfort them both.

-

Jyn loses track of time. There are more missions. Comings and goings. Gains. Losses.

There seem to be a lot of those.

Buros dies somewhere far away, shuttle destroyed lightyears away. Jyn gets promoted.

Min leaves, slips away during a supply run that takes them to a crowded space station and it isn’t until they return to Dantooine and find all her things cleared out of her barrack that they understand her absence is intentional. 

Other soldiers come to take her place. Jyn works alongside a new captain. Jenu Maissi looks like a woman carved from volcanic rock, tall, imposing, solid. She leaves Jyn to work independently with the new recruits, trusts her to make the call about who should progress further in basic training and who should be reassigned. Jyn finds herself recommending more and more recruits elsewhere. 

More and more Jyn finds herself wondering whether of this is helping at all.

-

A strange ship arrives at midday and the band that disembarks is ragged looking, worn-down and threadbare and filthy. A murmur goes up around the base as they’re led away, shut up tight behind the heavy doors of the council chambers.

Jyn goes about her duties same as always, tries to put the strange ship from her mind as she goes from training mat to firing range to the grounds. The mess is rumbling with rumors when Jyn walks in, people lost in wild speculation. Jyn leaves her tray before she even gets into the meal line, her temples tight with tension from a long day of trying to break in her newest batch of recruits.

It doesn’t get easier, the looks, the questions, the doubt in people’s eyes when they first see her. There’s always a flash of worry she can’t entirely stop from appearing, one of the oldest fears Jyn knows. That someone might know her for who her parents were, that the name Erso might mean more to them than the rank before it. It’s muddled now with a new fear: these are people she’s preparing for death.

She wanders the base, too wired to return to her barrack for the night, unsure of what to do or where to go. Makkal is off world and Cassian has been locked in a series of briefings for what feels like years. Jyn hasn’t seen him for longer than a minute in almost two days (something is coming, Jyn can feel it in her bones, jittery and unnerved by the change in the air. She tugs on her mother’s crystal, warm under her fingertips, and tries not to be afraid). 

She rounds a corner and unexpectedly trips over K-2, tapping at a data console. He looks at her, assesses her, and then returns to whatever it is he’s doing. 

Jyn watches K-2 connect to the data port. The miniature screen of the console flickers, blinks on and off for a moment before it stabilizes again.

“I’m not going to even bother asking if you ought to be doing that.” Jyn says drily, leaning against the walls. 

“Then I do not have to answer.” K-2 says, not bothering to look at Jyn. 

“Well you’ve got me there.” Jyn mumbles, watching the screen but nothing of interest appears. Whatever K-2’s looking for he’s keeping it to himself. “Can you tell me what you’re after at least? Or is that also confidential?”

“It is, in the strictest sense, classified information.” K-2SO answers, voice dropping lower. He looks around the corridor. Jyn rolls her eyes. She wonders if the paranoia was part of his original programing or something Cassian installed. 

“That doesn’t seem to be stopping _you_ ”. Jyn points out bluntly. There’s no need for finesse when it comes to dealing with K-2. 

“The council is meeting with a group of partisan rebels.”

“Partisan rebels? Isn’t it enough to hate the Empire?”

“It would seem not. The rebels here follow someone who calls himself Saw Guerra. There is not much on file for him but it seems he broke with the council over differences of ideology before your arrival on Kieva.”

“Saw Guerra?” Jyn asks, the name dripping like ice water down her spine. 

“Yes. A rebel combatant.” K-2 repeats as though Jyn is purposefully missing information.

“Is he here?” Jyn asks, trying to smother the tightly coiling fear in the pit of her stomach. 

K-2 whirrs. “No. He has not appeared at any official gatherings in a long time.”

Saw Guerra. Jyn bites her lip. “Does it say—is there anything on record about known associates? Or—allies? Anyone—anyone we know?”

What does Jyn expect? That her parents’ names will be documented somewhere in a rebel database? That her father might have, perhaps, in his own way, been a part of this fight too. Not in whatever isolated way he was but part of a greater whole. That she might still be a part of them by continuing their fight for them. 

“Are you looking for someone in particular?” K-2 asks, his own nosiness piqued enough that he doesn’t give Jyn a hard time for her curiosity. 

“Does he—is there any kind of imperial connection?” 

K-2SO considers her the way he does hyperspace coordinates, head tilting towards her and optic sensors dimming and brightening in a way that reminds Jyn of eyes narrowing. “There is no mention of your father anywhere in Saw Guerra’s files. Should there be?” 

“I—I don’t know.” Jyn tucks hair back from her face with nervous fingers. “I—my mother told me he would come for us. On Lah’mu. We were supposed to wait for him to come—he’d helped us before. I don’t remember it, not really, I was so little when we left Coruscant. I don’t remember if he was there—but my mother promised me he would come to our aid. If they found us.” She’s always wondered if he came, if the man called Saw Guerra had come in for them on Lah’mu, if he’d ever figured out what happened. There hadn’t been any bodies left behind. Perhaps he’d even searched for them. Maybe he spared a thought for them from time to time. 

“There is no mention of that in any record I can find.” K-2 says, humming methodically from deep within his chassis. 

“No.” Jyn says, trying to smooth the disappointment from her voice. “I didn’t think there would be.”

She watches K-2 work a while longer in silence, peering now and again down the corridor to make sure no one is watching them too closely. There aren’t very many other rebels wandering about the area but the last thing Jyn needs is someone questioning why Cassian’s droid is hacking into secure rebel data. Jyn leans back against the wall, does her best to act causal. “Are you waiting for me?” K-2 asks, sounding a fraction less petulant than usual to have Jyn hanging around. 

“Would you rather explain yourself to the guards alone?” Jyn answers, leaning her shoulder against the rock at her back. 

“They’ve never asked before—but perhaps you’re right.” 

Jyn grins almost against her will. “Wow. Does it hurt to admit that?” 

-

Cassian is still nowhere to be found so K-2 trails along after her as she takes a circular route back to the mess. She hopes it’ll be emptier now than before. According to K-2 Saw’s rebels are cleared to depart soon, which means those most interested in their presence on base might fly to the hangar to spy on their departure. 

“Does Cassian order you to do that?” Jyn asks under her breath. Even as she breathes the question she thinks she knows the answer. “Cassian would never order me to defy Rebellion regulations.” K-2SO answers, sounding honestly offended that Jyn would even suggest it. 

Jyn rolls her eyes. She thought as much. 

“So you just—”

“There has been an increase in briefings in the last forty-eight hours. I have not been allowed into any of them.”

“He’ll tell you though, won’t he? When he’s allowed? He has to tell you for you to accompany him.” K-2 doesn’t respond. His silence is deafening. 

“You’re afraid you won’t be allowed to accompany him.” It isn’t a question this time. 

“It has happened before.” K-2 says, still loping slowly at her side. His hulking statute doesn’t make Jyn feel nearly as small as the plaintive note to his voice when he says that. 

“Do you think—are you afraid they’ll send him away with the partisans?”

“I am not programmed to fear—but I would be remiss if I did not note the strategic failings of sending a lone intelligence officer into a partisan den.”

Jyn does not say anything but the possibilities hang in the air between them. She wonders how long K-2’s been calculating the outcomes, the benefits and possible consequences of sending Cassian to Saw Guerra.

“Would he go?” Jyn asks, trying to alleviate some of the dread tightening around her heart, “Would Cassian go with someone who broke with the Rebellion?” It seems hard to believe.

K-2 is silent, considering. “The Rebel Alliance is not what it should be. It would serve in its best interest to reconnect with former allies, whomever they might be. Cassian will go where he is ordered.” 

Her stomach twists and she’s glad for the hunger gnawing at her insides. At least there’s nothing to heave out on to the floor. The idea of Saw Guerra crowds at the back of her mind like a specter, the past reaching out for her. For Cassian. Cassian sent away to who knows where without even K-2 to watch over him. To people without loyalty to the Rebellion, to him. Who would tell them if—how would Jyn know if—

“Will you tell Cassian about this?” K-2SO asks slowly, bordering on guilty. If Jyn was slightly less shaken she would marvel. 

“Tell Cassian what?” Jyn answers innocently enough, offering K-2 a thin grin she can barely hold in place. 

K-2’s optics brighten. “You continue to surprise me, Jyn Erso.” 

She presses her knuckles to K-2’s side, finds reassurance in the unyielding metal.

-

Waiting is the hardest part. For better or worse, Jyn doesn’t have to wait long. Not this time.

-

Draven walks into the training room and even before he calls her name Jyn knows it’s her he’s here for.

“Sergeant Erso,” He greets her, stepping into the ring of recruits clustered around Jyn. A number of them look on with wide curious eyes, more of them glance at her, annoyance and exhaustion clearly written on their faces. Jyn scowls back, dismisses them to the grounds for further training. “I see you have your work cut out for you.” Draven says once they’re mostly out of earshot, and Jyn reels her back straight, spinal column a steel rod embedded under her skin. 

“I don’t mind the work.” She answers cooly, donning caution like armor, keeping her face blank as she tips her head back to look up at him. 

Draven’s never looked for her without wanting something in exchange. Jyn doesn’t expect anything different from him today. 

Draven nods, his own face a calm composition, an impenetrable mask of severe neutrality. “The Rebel Alliance is better for your dedication.” He says, hands folded behind his back, shoulders deceptively at ease. Jyn’s stomach rolls, pins and needles prick along her arms, in her hands, down the backs of her legs and in the soles of her feet. Fear bubbles up inside her and she tries her hardest to press it down, hold it at bay. 

“Did you need something, sir?” Jyn asks, wanting to cut to the bone of the matter, see it for whatever it truly is.

“Follow me, Sergeant.” Draven says, nodding his head towards the corridor, guiding Jyn through the maze of stone hallways, pass soldiers and droids, faces unknown and familiar. Years from now, Jyn will still remember the walk, the sound of their boots across the stone floors, her heart in her throat.

Jyn will remember stepping into Draven’s office, Cassian standing at attention before the cluttered desk. There are others present, intelligence officers Jyn never knows by name, another general, but all Jyn sees is Cassian, the rigid line of his body, the flinch that ticks in his jaw when he sees her enter the room. 

He looks at her and she thinks it’s an apology in his eyes but it won’t be until later that she knows what it is he’s asking forgiveness for. 

Draven circles around Jyn, comes to the front of the room, picks a datapad up from the mess on his desk. Cassian’s eyes don’t leave Jyn and Jyn stares back at him until she can’t, until Draven’s voice tears her attention away.

“Sergeant Erso, tell us everything you know about Orson Krennic.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a week. 
> 
> If you're still reading this or are new to the fic, I just want to say that getting to work on this story has become one of my truest comforts.
> 
> Sending all my love and well wishes out to you who ever you might be and wherever you are. <3 <3 <3

The lake is as still and silent as ever Jyn’s seen it, the water’s surface calm, ripples barely discernable to her eyes. The sky overhead is crystal clear, blue as an opal, the winter sun a weak pale light at the center. 

Pale as the lights hanging in Draven’s office, pale as the whites of Cassian’s eyes as he watched her face. Pale as her knuckles, squeezed tight, her teeth grit tighter, her insides constricting until she felt like she was choking. Not in her lungs or her chest or her throat. Her entire body was choking, furling with a single convulsion. 

(“Sergeant Erso.” Draven repeats, holding Jyn’s gaze, cool blue eyes daring her to look away. “We are waiting for your answer.”)

Orson Krennic. The man in white. A pale monster that still haunts Jyn’s dreams. The man who came out of the sky on his vulture ship, who ordered Mama’s death, who stole Papa, who kept Jyn locked away in a four-walled room good as a cell, the door sealed shut for every perceived trespass. 

(“I’ve told you everything I know, sir.” She says, clenching her hands at her side, nails digging into her palms. “My father used to work for him. He came after us when we left.” Weapons development. A man of vision but not of means, he needed Papa for that. He needed Papa’s brain to make his monstrosities realities. He was supposed to be on Eadu that night and for three years Jyn's hoped, has prayed, has fought to believe him dead. She dreams that the fire took him just as Papa had been taken from her. “I like to think he’s dead.”) 

Even in the winter Dantooine is evergreen, cool and frost-tipped, but still beautiful. Jyn’s never hated it more. The tranquility, the quiet. Lah’mu was all grey sea-mist, the air heavy with salt. Eadu was rain-drenched, someplace cruel and hardened to the use of the Empire. A nightmare place that leaves Jyn cold to the heart of her, as cold as memories of the cave, the hatch in the earth. 

Dantoonie should be as dreary, as solemn, as miserable as the knot in Jyn’s belly that tightens even more every time her mind turns towards the memory of Cassian’s face as Draven told her of their intentions. A mission to an Imperial facility in the Outer Rim. Weapons development. (“Director Krennic’s signature is all over transmissions intercepted from the facility. We have reason to believe he is overseeing whatever production is taking place on Kamino. Any information you might have on this man could benefit Lieutenant Andor’s mission—”) 

Jyn presses both her hands over her mouth to smother her scream, but it still seems to echo in the clearing. 

-

“I don’t want to talk.” She says, tossing another rock into the water. It sinks with a plop, rings blossoming outward across the spot where the water’s broken. 

Cassian doesn’t make a sound, boots nearly silent on the thin grass as he moves towards her. He stands at her side, hands thrust in his pockets. When he exhales his breath hangs in a fine white mist in front of his lips. “You had to tell them Jyn.”

She throws the next rock farther, harder. Her heart beats furiously inside her chest but the stone barely makes a sound when it breaks the surface of the water. 

Cassian shifts, voice still infuriatingly calm. “I’d be going regardless. You know that. The mission doesn’t change.” He reaches for her, touches her wrist. “You’d be sitting in the brig right now if you hadn’t—”

Jyn jerks her arm away savagely, flings the next rock with reckless fury. “Don’t—don’t try to make this about protecting me.” 

Cassian’s frown deepens, “Jyn—”

“They say jump and you don’t even bother looking do you?” She empties her hands out onto the ground, some of the pebbles rolls away, disappear into the shoreline, “You just leap.” The words feel like ground glass in her throat, but her voice holds steady, like a blaster held tight in the heat of battle. An unerring calm born of calamity. 

Cassian’s hand drops, but he holds his ground. “We're soliders. I have orders—”

“Hang the orders!” She snaps, sharp as a vibroblade. “Don’t tell me you’re really going along with this. Undercover at an Imperial facility? It’s mad. They’ll—they’ll find you out.” They’ll do so much worse to him than even a locked room, worse than loneliness. (Mama shoots. Mama falls. Mama disappears into the grass like she was never there at all.)

“You think so little of me—”

She grabs at his arms. Cassian goes rigid, eyes hard as he meets hers, “They’ll kill you.” She says, digging her fingers in deep. He’s so thin, but there’s strength in his body, bone-deep and unflagging. Her heart hammers behind her ribs to think of that strength shattered. 

“Then I die.” He says, the calm fractured to pieces now, webbed like cracked ice, “I’d rather die knowing that I’d done everything I could to stop the Empire than live knowing I’d given up out of fear.” 

Jyn bites back a snarl, relinquishes her hold on him and stumbles back. “And what? I’m just supposed to live with it too? I’m just supposed to let you go knowing I helped you get yourself killed? How am I supposed to—” She presses her palm to her mouth. Her eyes sting but no tears come. It’s as though all the fury in her body has caused them to evaporate before they can even fall. 

Cassian drags in a deep breath. “You asked me, remember?” He exhales a jagged sound. Jyn turns her back on him, unable to look at him any longer. “You asked me to help you, Jyn. Even when I begged you to wait. You thanked me for it. For putting a blaster in your hand and sending you off stars know where. You think I don’t think about how you could die? Every time you leave, every time I leave, that it might be the last time. And it’ll be my fault.”

The sound that wrenches itself loose from behind Jyn’s teeth is too horrible to be a laugh, it rattles against the roof of her mouth. “Is this payback then? An eye for an eye. You killed me so now I’ll kill you.” She rounds towards him again. There’s a wildness in his dark eyes, something brutal that makes Jyn’s stomach ache, his face flushed from the cold and his own anger. Any other time she’d want to smooth the look away, but today it only makes her angrier. “That man killed my family. He killed my mother and my father and now you’re just going to give yourself over to him—you’re just going to go—you’re—”

“It’s my duty—”

“It was someone’s duty to kill my mother. And Tymon. And Buros—” Her teeth click against each other when she snaps her mouth shut. She drags in a rasping breath. “It was someone’s _duty_ to drop the bombs that killed my father. And someone’s duty to kill yours. But that doesn’t make it right.” 

The color drains from Cassian's face. He shakes his head, “Don’t—don’t make me out to be some kind of stormtrooper.” He runs his hand through his hair, leaves it a tangled mess, “This is my responsibility Jyn. I couldn’t—I can’t—I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to end this war.”

Jyn rears back, “Is this living?” she gestures to the forest around them, “Is this all there is to our lives? Fighting and hiding and waiting to die? Don’t you—” she fumbles over the words, licks over the backs of her teeth. It's all a jumble, anger and dread and desperation. She wants him to understand her, her body aches with it, but more than that, her fury mounts at the thought that he simply refuses to. “Haven't you ever wanted more, Cassian? Have you ever—don’t you ever _want_ something for yourself. Not for the Rebellion, or Draven or who ever it is holding your leash—" He flinches as though she's physically struck him but Jyn can't apologize, can't hold any of it back any longer, "Damn it, Cassian! _Want_ something for yourself, just this once—"

"I wanted _you_ to know." Cassian says. He doesn’t scream at her, if anything his voice goes lower, comes from some place deep and dark and bottomless. She’s never heard him sound like that before. His face is so still it could be stone. "I told the general to speak to you because I knew there wasn’t any other way to tell you. And it was selfish of me, but I wanted you to know what I was doing. Where I was going. I couldn’t think of any other way." He heaves a ragged breath. "Do you really think I don't know? That I don't think about how this might end? I know how this ends Jyn. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old—I’ve always known how it ends for me.”

She’s so angry, her heart broken and aching inside her chest, her throat tight. She lashes out, her palms push hard against his chest. She hates his resignation. His calm. He steps back with the blow, barely jostled. “It doesn’t have to be like this.” She says desperately, “It doesn’t.” She's trying to convince them both. 

“This is what it is. I wish—I’m sorry.” He says, and worse of all is that he is. He really is sorry. Cassian might even be sorry for going. 

She shoves him again, but this time her fingers curl into the front of his jacket, tug him close. She doesn’t hug him, so angry her bones vibrate under her skin. She thinks she’ll shake apart and being close to him only makes it worse, but she can’t let him go. He’ll disappear if she lets him go. Jyn knows it. It’s what happened to Papa, back on Eadu. Jyn with her bitter heart and short words, Jyn who resented her loneliness and her isolation, Jyn who wanted so much more than he could give her when he was prisoner himself. 

Cassian’s hand fumbles over the back of her neck, his fingers dislodge the messy knot resting at the back of her head. Her hair spills free. 

“I’m sorry, Jyn. I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t know how—” He whispers like it’s all he has left to offer her. “I’m sorry.”

She hates him. It burns brighter than a sun flare inside her guts, how badly she hates him. It’s almost as strong as all the parts of her that love him. 

-

Someday Jyn will dream.

The hull of a ship, the base outside so silent it might as well be deserted, the inside dim and quiet and safe. 

In the dream she knows it’s Cassian’s last night, a luxury not afforded to them in reality. They’ve taken to spending their nights in the U-wing in the days since Draven pulled Jyn into his office. They sleep side by side, like that day out by the lake, or else lay next to each other, staring up into the dark. The winter cold forces them close, and Jyn presses her nose to his shoulder, breathes in the scent of him, mixed with the ever-present scent of engine oil and exhaust. They've spread his blanket out beneath them, their jackets balled beneath their heads and Jyn's blanket extends over them both, a thin nest to keep out some of the cold.

In the morning, Jyn knows, Cassian will be sent away and so she tries to commit every detail to memory but so much of it slips through her fingers before she can truly grab hold of it. 

In the dream, like in reality, Cassian’s hand finds hers in the dark, his fingers cold. “You’re the only family I have left.” He says, voice soft. In reality he thought her asleep, and Jyn forced her breath to remain even, her fingers slack under his, her limbs loose. She knew it wasn't a secret she was meant to have. 

In her dream Jyn is bolder, less afraid of the fragile-cored feeling that fills her from the bottom of her heels to her fingertips. Less afraid of loss. In the dream Jyn opens her eyes and turns towards him, seeks out Cassian’s sharp face until the palm of her hand is pressed to his cheek. 

In her dream Jyn presses her lips to his, a soft kiss, a tender thing, something precious to be protected. In her dream Jyn says, “I’m with you.” and there’s never any reason for the words to be anything less than true. 

-

Cassian doesn’t say goodbye. He’s gone from one moment to the next and the only comfort Jyn has to hold close is the fact that he took K-2SO with him. 

Still, when she realizes he’s gone, she stumbles into a storage room and cries. She cries so hard she thinks she’ll never stop, fist pressed against her lips to muffle any sound, heart beating furiously, trapped behind her ribs, blood pounding in her ears. Her earlier anger feels silly now, hollowed out and childish compared to the too real possibility that she’ll never see him again.

Eventually the tears do stop--they always do--and Jyn wipes her heated face off on the rough fabric of her shirt sleeve, her eyes pulsing in their sockets and snot dripping from her nose. Jyn coughs weakly, trying to regain her breath, rights herself to her full height.

Her fingers reach for her mother’s kyber crystal, fumble it free from the neck of her shirt until the pads of her fingers are brushing over the rough warm surface of it. It seems to pulse in her grip, as though there’s a beating heart held within it. ‘Trust the Force.’ Mama told her and Jyn tries, she really does, stone in hand and heart lodged in her throat. 

_Come back to me. Come back to me. Come back to me._

-

She emerges from the storage closet puffy-faced and brittle with exhaustion, her mother’s necklace tucked safely out of sight once more. 

She takes off, heads towards the training room, ready for another fight. 

Inside her mind is set, the seeds of the idea she’s tended irregularly for months now having finally produced fruit too ripe to ignore any longer. 

Force help her, she means to live. 

She means to live and, with any luck, Cassian will live with her. 


	14. Chapter 14

Jyn decides the first thing she needs are credits. No one in the Rebellion’s been paid with more than a meal and a bedroll since its inception from the stories Jyn’s heard, so there’s no finding money there. 

On Eadu there was a story she heard once, of a traitor killed for stealing from the Empire—a low-ranked pilot who skimmed off the top of whatever supplies it was he was meant to shuttle between Imperial outposts and turned profit selling them along the Outer Rim—but supplies among the rebels are strapped tight as it is, there’s no way Jyn’s pilfering would go unnoticed long enough for her to make anything. More importantly, the thought of stealing supplies from the soldiers who have committed themselves to this cause turns her stomach. Jyn’s heart might live with the rebel cause but she’s lived alongside it’s soldiers for three years now, has trained with them and trained them and fought and bled with them, she won’t imperil their lives even more than they already are. Not even for this. 

But there are other ways of making money even stuck on Dantooine. She starts at the sabacc tables. She’s never had much interests in games but Makkal taught her the rules to this one years ago, back aboard the Fauggaut when boredom was driving them all out of their minds. Jyn isn’t half the player Makkal is but she was a good enough pupil to pick up the tricks needed to wrestle a few extra credits from some rather drunk pilots. 

“The little Imp is good.” Slurs a swaggering mess of a pilot who answers to the name Chetol Svel, slumping into Jyn’s side heavily as she claims the pot. His breath stinks of contraband gin when he exhales in Jyn’s face and Jyn shrugs his arm off her shoulders, deposits her credits into her pocket. “The little Imp will shoot you.” She says cooly and that earns raucous laughter from the table. Svel chuckles drunkenly, dropping his arm with a wounded air. “What you expect boys? A tooka can’t change its stripes.” But he winks at Jyn, brown face rosy with drink and humor. She doesn’t even elbow him as hard as she can when she hits him in the side. 

-

“Aren’t you hungry?” Vobal asks her aboard the shuttle carrying them back to Dantooine. Jyn’s stomach growls, but the hum of the engines carrying them through hyperspace more than drowns out the sound. 

“Not now.” Jyn says slipping the ration bar into her pack. She closes her eyes and rests her head against the bulkhead. In her head she takes stock of her inventory, the ration bars stowed away now at the bottom of a spare duffle stowed away atop a shelf in a storage room that rarely gets used. They’re all Jyn’s, the portions assigned to her on missions, and she reminds herself its not stealing, to keep what’s hers to use when she truly needs it. She hopes—though the optimism feels foreign inside her chest—that she’ll need enough for two. 

Her stomach growls again and she crosses her arms over her chest, slumps in her seat as much as she can, as though she’s trying to get into a more comfortable position for sleep. Hunger isn’t anything she hasn’t survived before.

-

“Picking up new pastimes with Andor away?” Makkal asks Jyn the night their paths cross at the game table. 

One of the pilots at Jyn’s side sniggers under their breath, though they quiet quickly when Makkal turns her grey eyes on them. Jyn’s ears burn. She doesn’t need to know the details of what others on base have to say about her relationship with Cassian.

“Anything to fill the time.” Jyn replies evenly, casting her lot. Makkal nearly smirks, but her eyes are sharp, scrutinizing Jyn’s movements. 

“I won’t go easy on you.”

“When have you ever?” 

-

Weapons are harder to sneak. Jyn’s assigned her pistol and there’s a rifle she inherited from Buros’ possessions, Makkal gave her a truncheon long ago and Cassian brought her back a small pair of knives from one of his shorter trips off base. Jyn keeps one in her boot most of the time, though she knows there’s no taking out a squadron of enemy combatants with only a small blade.

But she can’t hope to survive without some kind of arsenal so she dedicates herself to searching the scrap heaps where she first bid her time as a rebel, rifling through the rubbish to find thing she can jury rig to working order. She isn’t as proficient at it as Cassian but she’s decent. For nearly a week she spends her nights borrowing from the mess of tools the pilots leave around the hangar, sneaking time at work benches burning the tips of her fingers with soldering tools, the taste of burning metal coating her tongue. It’s slow, frustrating work but Jyn manages to assemble enough orphaned bits and pieces to put together something functional. 

-

There are still missions to attend and trainings to plan and oversee. For all that Jyn plans, the Rebellion and the war it wages continues throughout the galaxy. A terrible constant, perhaps the only constant threaded throughout the entire length of Jyn’s life.

Tymon is promoted to squad leader of his own group. Vobal gets taken in by General Zyphera, she trades in her rifle for a datapad and spends her days barking orders at other rebels about the proper organization of the store rooms. 

Jyn still sees them in the mess but their days eating meals together dwindle until they seem to have slipped into memory. Jyn doesn’t let herself mind, shovels food into her mouth as quickly as she can and then goes about her work (if her pockets are lined with whatever food will keep without spoiling no one’s called her on it yet). Makkal leaves for a mission to a Mid-Rim world, bids Jyn farewell with her usual brisk dryness. “Try not to miss me too much.” She deadpans and something hot clenches around Jyn’s heart. She wants to reach out and wrap Makkal in an embrace she knows Makkal will not accept easily. Something must show on her face because Makkal swings at Jyn’s shoulder lightly, her knuckles there and gone again in the span of breath. “I’ll see you soon.” She says with something close to gentleness in her voice. Jyn nods, but her throat won’t loosen enough for her to force a glib response. She hates goodbyes. She’d had too many of them. 

A month after Cassian leaves a vessel arrives carrying Mon Mothma and an aged senator Jyn recognizes from holos glimpsed in passing. There’s a girl trailing behind them—her face is round and soft with childhood still, even if her brown eyes are heavy with thought, inspecting everything around her—dressed in the same soft grey as the senator. Soldiers halt in attention as they pass, salute the group that walks, three regal figures that stand out, shiny and soft and delicate to look on in the rough forested setting of the rebel base. 

“That’s Bail Organa.” One of the soldiers behind Jyn whispers, “And the princess.” Jyn wracks her memory but there’s nothing of significance for her to find. Her education on Eadu had been route, facts and figures heavily supplemented by lectures to the glory of the Empire. Among the rebels her learning has been dedicated to weapons, to blows, to all the ways of turning her body and life into artifacts capable of helping the Rebel Alliance’s cause. 

Bail Organa calls after the princess when she falls behind, talking with a group of soldiers, her mouth firm, her eyes focused, every ounce of her attention given to the men and women gathered around her, and Jyn almost flinches at what she sees. He holds his hand out to beckon the princess closer, and the girl nods, gives her apologies to the soldiers cut off and strides confidently after, the folds of her grey skirt swirling like fog around her legs. She can’t be taller than Jyn but she moves like she could command mountains to bend with a single word. It isn’t until she’s within arm’s reach of the senator that her face transforms, the picture of political perfection gives way to the grin she offers the senator, wry and too clever by half, her eyes full of affection when the senator clasps her shoulder. “Don’t wander away Leia.” The senator chides, but there’s no reproach in his tone, just a gentle exasperation, like he already knows the futility of the reminder. 

“Sorry father.” The princess says as they pass away, out of sight and out of ear shot. 

(“Stardust.” Papa whispers, kissing her forehead while in the other room the Man in White chattered on, voice slick as oil, and Jyn thought of her mother’s pale face, tight with unhappiness. “I’m right here. I’ll always be right here to protect you.”)

Jyn scurries back to business and doesn’t let the cold spike of jealousy dig any deeper into her gut.

-

(“You’re the only family I have left.” _Open your mouth_ , Jyn thinks, eyes pressed shut, _open your mouth and tell him. Say something say something_ —

But Jyn says nothing.)

-

Her horde grows. 

She imagines herself sometimes like one of the ancient reptilian creatures Mama told her about, winged star-serpents that slithered between planets and made nests inside moon caves, hording starlight and sun-jewels, getting fat with greed. 

“You doing alright?” Tomo asks on one of the rare mornings their meal times coincide these days. Jyn nods, digging heartily into her portion of protein. It won’t keep longer than a day now that it’s been unsealed so there’s no point in trying to save it, Jyn’s free to eat to her stomach’s content today. 

“You?” Jyn shoots back, mouth still half-full. Tomo isn’t phased by the lack of manners, he cuts his own protein into neat segments and spears a cube with his fork. “Can’t complain.” Tomo says with genuine neutrality. He’s growing a beard out, trimmed short and neat. It makes his face even hard to interpret. Jyn misses him too. 

Jyn swipes the last of her food off her tray and doesn’t let herself dwell on the feeling. 

-

Kestrel Dawn is not the most original name in the galaxy but it’s all that comes to Jyn when she’s hunched over at General Zyphera’s work station in the middle of the night. Breaking into the proper programs isn’t as easy for her as it might be for K-2 but Jyn pestered him long enough after their conversation in the hallway that day—not even two months ago but it feels a lifetime removed already—and it only takes her a couple of hours to find what she’s looking for and half that the following night to get started on her work. 

She decides against nabbing the picture used in her official officer’s file. She looks so much like a child still, though it shouldn’t be possible, it is, the evidence of it staring back at Jyn from the miniature screen, green and filmy as it is. She touches her thumb to the screen until she’s blotted out her own face. She’ll take another she decides, makes a note to do that, goes on with the rest of the work. 

It doesn’t take long at all to put together a new identity. A new name, a new face, a new person. Jyn marvels that it might be so easy, to shed Jyn Erso and all her woes. It doesn’t seem possible. Whatever name she answers to. (Cassian might know, Jyn’s mind supplies traitorously, and she hushes it, impatient, focuses on her work. Jyn’s only ever been privy to the rumors that abound on base. Cassian would never talk about it even if she had the nerve to ask.)

She encrypts the file when she’s done, transfers it to her own personal datapad, still the same refurbished scrap she rescued years ago. Paranoia makes her bury it deep, behind locks and false names. No one would know where to start looking if they ever found out there was something to look for. It’s the kind of precaution that would make Papa proud. 

Jyn wonders, nervousness turning over in her gut, how presumptuous it would be to make another. She wonders if she ought to wait for— _what if he dies, what if he disappears, what if, what_ —but the uncertainty behind the idea makes her tongue prickle behind her teeth. The click of every key she strikes at the work station echoes with an odd finality inside the empty office. 

There’s no picture anywhere in any data file she can find, Cassian’s official file practically devoid of information. The barest bones of a record. It’s almost as though he doesn’t exist, not even here among these people he’s sworn to serve under. It leaves a bitter taste at the back of her throat. 

Kay Tu she types in the proper space and her lips almost twitch with a grin. 

When Cassian sees it— _if he comes back, if he comes back, he has to come back, he has to say yes, if he doesn’t_ —she thinks he’ll laugh. 

-

She sleeps with her datapad pressing hard under the ridge of her cheek, stowed away in the grubby pack that acts as her pillow for the rest of the night. 

That night Jyn dreams herself a star-serpent winding in tight coils over and around her horded treasure, her whole body engulfed in star-fire.

-

She needs to find the right words. 

She thinks of that day out on the lake, his brow creased with confusion when she told him that they didn't have to live like this. It feels wrong now, the longer he’s away, and she wishes she could explain, how deeply she loves and loved the people this war has brought her, Makkal and Cassian, even Buros for all his precision and candor. It’s what makes her want so fiercely to protect them, all of them who remain for her to protect now. But how she can explain what she can barely understand herself, how she can feel indebted to the Rebel Alliance knowing all the while it dropped the bombs that killed her father, that it put a blaster in her hands, in Cassian’s hands, and expected her to follow blindly to whatever end. 

Saying as much to Cassian won’t get her anywhere.

Jyn sits out on the grounds away from the base from time to time, picks at her nails and turns words over and over inside her head trying to figure out the right combination that'll make him listen. It's a kind of cruel irony that she once worried with equal fervor about convincing him to help her take orders with the Rebellion, back when she’d thought a commission was the best way to do something, to make something for herself. A way to get out from under the thumb of Fate. 

But it never fit right, no matter how much Jyn hoped it would, her worldview never broad enough to encompass a galaxy when all she’s know is loss that cuts down to the bone. There’s always been a need in her, a need for more that burns always under her skin, a desire to live life on her own terms, a hazy, unformed daydream of what living might be without fear and death weighing her down, no matter how impossible it might seem. How unimaginable. She thinks of the utter bewilderment in his face when she demanded he want something for himself, and how lost he sounded when he told her he'd wanted her to know. She doesn’t think he’s ever considered it for himself. 

It’s easier to worry about logistics. Preparations. She checks and double checks her hoard, spends long nights in Zyphera’s office looking at star maps, trying to find somewhere to run, tries to put together a plan that’ll keep her alive. Jyn collects credits one by one, ration bars, bandages, thinks that the best argument she can make is a well thought one, that Cassian won’t be able to reject her proposal if its good enough. (“You’re the only family I have left.” He said to her even if he didn’t mean for her to hear it and she wonders if that’s enough. Sentiment has never seemed enough to sway Cassian and she feels sick with doubt.) 

The words will come after, Jyn tells herself, she just needs to have everything else ready. 

-

She comes awake with a stifled gasp, face turned into her pack. Her heart races in her throat, her skin prickles with cold sweat. 

Visions of the man in white still burn behind her eyes as she searches the dark blindly, as though he might be there, come for her at long last. 

“Are you alright?” comes a whisper in the dark somewhere to Jyn’s left, small, cautious. It startles her and she flinches beneath her thin blanket, balls her hands into fists and presses them down against her stomach. It shivers and jumps under the weight of her hands. 

It takes Jyn a moment to place the voice. Shanda. She’s only been assigned to this barrack a week. Jyn’s spoken to her maybe twice.

Someone shushes them from deeper in the room, someone else rustles and turns. 

Jyn swallows but her mouth still feels stuck together when she pries her lips apart to answer. Already her dream is slipping away, the details drifting further and further from her until only the dread and devastation are left behind. 

She moves her hand until she can curl her shaking fingers over the hard kyber crystal tangled near her throat. It’s warm, always warm, and when she was a child she’d like to believe it meant something, that it was the Force Mama spoke of, protecting her. She doesn’t know what she believes now but for the moment it’s enough to hold it close, to press it against the palm of her hand and try to press down the fear leaks through the cracks she can’t stop up quickly enough.

“I’m fine.”

-

There’s a world somewhere where she succeeds. Where she collects enough and prepares enough, where Jyn goes and lives a long unremarkable life somewhere far removed from the war the Empire and Rebel Alliance wage against one another. And another where Cassian comes, where Jyn says the right words and convinces him and together they leave, cast their lives as soldiers off the way sand-lizards on Tatoonie rub off their old skins after the cold season.

There are lives atop lives, better lives and worse lives and lives where they never meet at all.

There are kinder universes somewhere. 

There are.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS _GUYS_
> 
> This is the chapter I've been looking forward to slash dreading since I first sat down to start writing this story. 
> 
> Please don't hate me. Hanging in there with me, I promise this is going somewhere. 
> 
> Bless all y'all <3

Time turns memory into a kind of dream. The details blur, grow indistinguishable from whatever it is the mind conjures to fill in the empty spaces that grow like mold over all the things that happen. 

It’s the worst of certainties, a fate Jyn wishes she knew how to evade. What would she give to keep it all, to know beyond any kind of doubt what it was she was doing, what she said, where she was. To know her own life in detail. 

After so much loss no one can blame her for wanting to hold on to everything she can. 

-

This is what Jyn will always remember: 

The way General Zyphera’s scratched at his beard, how he’d pull at it whenever he was deep in thought, how the wiry hair sprang back when he released it. She’ll remember Vobal’s laughter through a mouthful of jellied root and Tymon’s grin, unwavering even when he was pinned to the training matt with a knee pressing down on his chest. She’ll remember Draven’s unyielding eyes studying her face, looking for a break Jyn couldn’t let him find, and how her stomach ached the first time she ever sat alone in an empty interrogation room, hair still dripping on the back of her neck. Jyn’ll recall Svel’s blustering laughter and the roar of the pilots laughing as she collected her winnings.

She’ll remember the day Makkal took her out onto the moors on Kieva and lined up scraps of metal for her to practice shooting, and how it wasn’t until later that she remembered it was her name day. She’ll never find out if Makkal meant to do that or not. 

Jyn will remember Mama’s hands on her face and Papa’s arms hoisting her up and Cassian’s smile shining out towards her as she ran to him across a crowded hangar bay floor.

-

(“You’re the only family I have left.” Jyn turns towards him, reaches for his face in the dark. “And you’re mine.” She says and presses her lips to Cassian’s, kisses him with all the softness she knows she’s capable of. Cassian kisses her back, mouth gentle. Jyn’s eyes slip shut.

The sound he makes when she presses the nose of her blaster against his side and pulls the trigger echoes through the hold of the ship.

One day she’ll wake up, throat convulsing as though her heart were trying to leap up out her mouth, and wish she’d taken the chance.)

-

This is what Jyn will want to forget:

The way K-2 would hum sometimes, almost intentionally, deep, rhythmic, reassuring, while Jyn worked in an otherwise empty store room, how she sometimes sat and fell asleep listening to it, how comforting it was to know she wasn’t really alone. How Makkal would rap her knuckles against Jyn’s arm from time to time, a quiet affirmation, and how Buros always thanked her for her work as though he wasn’t her superior officer, able to order her as he thought best served the Rebellion.

She’ll want to rip out the feeling of want that grew in her, yank it roughly out of herself so that even the smallest root comes free, would rather have a gaping hole at the center than live with the reality that she wanted so badly to believe she could belong there. 

Jyn will want to forget how hopeful she felt in those weeks of waiting and planning, no matter how much she tried to blot it out, it grew wild inside her like a weed she couldn’t keep from sprouting. 

Hope, she’ll know by then, is the worst kind of affliction. 

-

But first:

Less than a month after he leaves, Cassian returns unheralded, his ship reappearing in the hangar as suddenly as it left. It’s the kind of abruptness that leaves Jyn reeling, feeds the off-kilter feeling that he’s a product of her imagination, coming and going like a moon completing an orbit rather than the cornerstone of her every life, the brightest star in a clustered constellation overhead. 

Inside her chest her heart hums, anticipation prickles in her throat. 

Jyn remembers, as suddenly as she forgot, what it was she came into the hangar in search of—Svel’s tool kit lying abandoned by the trash heap Y-wing he pilots—stopped as she is in her tracks by the sight of Cassian’s ship. She wonders how long he’s been here, the ship sitting silent and lonely, neither Cassian or K-2 anywhere in sight. 

She tries to backtrack, trace over the hours of the day to see when he might have slipped by. If something had happened to him, she thinks, tightening her hands into rigid fists, if something had wrong would someone have told her? Not Draven, surely, but Makkal, if something had gone wrong and Makkal knew of it she doesn’t doubt that Makkal would have found a way to let her know. 

His ship is back and for all that it feels like being cast afloat in open waters, Jyn lets through the first rays of Spring-flushed hope, takes a step towards the ship until its close enough to touch. The metal plating is cool when she touches her palm against the sealed door which means its’ been sitting here for hours. Hope isn’t enough of a balm to sooth the entirety of the sting from the thought that he’s been on Dantooine for hours and hadn’t sought her out. It’s hard not to fall under the dark cloud of worry, the chilled fingers of dread running down her back like winter rain. 

The access codes haven’t changed since the last time she spied over his shoulder and the hissing groan of the door giving way takes some of the weight off her chest, like her first step up into the hold helps her feel better centered, the dim interior as familiar to her now as the planes of Cassian’s face or the angles of K-2SO’s chassis. It smells stale the way all ships do after prolonged travel, recycled air and dust, engine grease and fuel fumes, but Jyn breathes it in deep regardless. 

Cassian is everywhere around her, in the sparseness she sees, the empty spaces and neatly kept supplies. She makes her way to the cockpit by the thin light that trickles in behind her and up ahead until she’s next to the pilot’s seat. She touches one of the screens on the navcom, its gone as cold as everything else seems to be. 

She imagines what it would be like to sit here, to climb into the co-pilot’s seat and have Cassian navigate their way somewhere else, anywhere else, in the galaxy. Heat blossoms out against her chest where Mama’s kyber crystal lies. She closes her eyes.

“Jyn?”

-

These are the things Jyn will forget:

The scar that ran the length of Cassian’s palm, thin and pink and shiny, from a blade he’d handled inexpertly as a child. 

The constellations that hung overhead on Keiva, the taste of Svel’s bootleg gin, the sharp aftertaste of it given off by whatever native berry it was he used for fermentation. 

She’ll forget what Tymon looked like but never what his last breath sounded like, how long Min served but never that she left, the frightened twitch of Vobal’s mouth that day on Jericho and how she picked leftovers off Jyn’s tray for a while before things changed and they drifted apart. 

Jyn’ll forget Buros’ last words to her and what it was she said in response.

She will forget the way K-2SO sighed as though the weight of his disappointment or apathy were enough to conjure lungs inside his chassis and how the thought always made Jyn want to laugh. She’ll forget the exact frequency of his voice but never how Cassian looked dwarfed beside him. 

Cassian. Cassian. Jyn will forget so much about him and she’ll pretend to forget the rest, will try to scrape every part of him away like moss off a stone. 

But one thing she’ll never forget, will never come close to forgetting no matter how hard she tries, is how she felt at his side. In store rooms, at mess tables, in the forest of Dantooine, in the hold of his ship. Lying next to him or even just with their hands tangled together. 

She’ll never forget how she trusted him. 

(“You’re the only family I have left.” He says and Jyn keeps her mouth closed to keep from telling him that he is hers.)

Jyn trusted him. Jyn loved him. 

If she’d trusted him less, she’ll think sometime, when the fury wanes, when exhaustion takes too strong a hold of her, in the split-second splinters of time when she’s at her weakest, if she’d only trusted him less she might have been able to forgive him. 

But she had loved him so much, more than was wise, more than was right—Mama and Papa, they’d been her family, her real family, taken from her by the very war the Rebellion fought—and that’s what Jyn will never forgive herself for. 

-

She doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is at her back. 

_He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive._ Her mind is empty except for that one glorious thought. Her legs turn to lead, her spine a steel rod as she pivots in place. The light of the hangar bay surrounds him, outlines him in pale gold and Jyn is half afraid that stepping closer will make him disappear, like a mirage across a flat desert scape. 

Jyn blinks but Cassian doesn’t disappear. He keeps still though and for a moment they’re both locked in place, not really meeting the other’s eye, just standing there, together and still divided. 

Her heart feels swollen inside her chest, too big for the fragile cage of bone and skin holding it together, it beats and beats, a rapid unrelenting rhythm that bruises her insides. Cassian Andor, alive. Cassian returned to her. Jyn doesn’t know what she wants to do more, weep or laugh or fall into a heap of exhaustion, the energy that kept her moving these past few weeks depleted now that he’s within arm’s reach. 

“Cassian.” She says, and the word feels infinite in her mouth, it contains multitudes, holds everything she feels and everything she wishes she could say. 

He steps forward then, and she thinks he must have heard her, must know what it is she feels, because he seems to stagger, as though pushing against a great force, pulling a weight at his back. 

She hadn’t imagined this, not once, had never allowed herself to picture him safe and back on Dantooine, no matter how much she wanted to. It felt like an ill-omen, to want this moment as badly as she did. 

_Alive, alive, alive._ He reaches her and the light that comes through the cockpit is softer still than the light at the bay doors, throws shadows over his features but his eyes are visible, so dark in the lowlight she would think they were black if she didn’t know better.

She wills her left hand to move, reaches up and touches her palm to the sharp ridge of his cheekbone, his skin roughened with stubble. He’s the most beautiful person she’s ever seen. 

“Jyn.” He says again as though she were the ghost, the specter, the one who disappears without any sign or warning. If she had air enough left in her lungs she’d laugh at the thought, the irony. 

(“You’re the only family I have left.” He says and Jyn keeps her mouth closed. Say something, say something, say something.)

She curls her fingers so that she can rub them over his jaw, up to the skin beneath his ear. He shivers, closes his eyes, head bowed forward. Jyn plucks courage from the pit of her belly, collects it into a bundle until she has enough of the spindly and weak reeds to feel strong. She tips her face upward, tucks her face against the side of his neck. His skin is warm. He smells of caf and burnt metal. 

It’s so simple. It wasn’t always, Jyn won’t pretend it was, but it’s simple now. It’s easy to tip her chin until her lips brush over the pulse threading under his skin. Cassian exhales sharply but he doesn’t push her away, doesn’t step away, goes to stone against her. 

His mouth is softer than she imagined it would be, uncertain—scared, she thinks, her own stomach fluttering behind her navel, he’s as scared as she is of this—and his arm moves and his hand closes over the back of her neck, rough palm and nervous fingers tracing up her spine up to the back of her skull.

There was a holodrama she watched once, a paltry gift granted to her to appease Papa, old and boring and terribly melodramatic. Jyn watched it only when boredom moved her to it, the tiny speaker of her datapad blaring the sweeping overwrought music every single time the lovers so much as looked at eachother. It had ended with a kiss, the noble warrior returned home to his waiting lover after long separation, the screen fading to black on the promise of their happy life together. 

It wasn’t anything like the kisses Jyn had spied between her parents, the quick pecks and quiet moments, the only things she’d ever known to compare the holo drama to. 

Romance seems so frivolous to Jyn, even now, perhaps especially now, because it isn’t epic romance she needs so much as she needs Cassian alive and beside her. She could live without this, without knowing the shape of his mouth against hers, but now that she has it she knows it’ll be a dimmer life without it. 

Life is dim enough already. 

It’s a fumbling kiss, nervous and cautious and frightened as it is. But Jyn’s heart soars and her palms sweat and she wants a hundred more just like it. 

It feels as though it’s gone on forever and not nearly long enough when Cassian pulls away on a ragged gasp, as though he’s coming up from deep waters, the hand that had gripped her side when she pressed close dropping away only to reach for her face, thumb stroking desperately over her cheek. 

When he speaks again his voice is ruined, but something to the sound of it makes everything in Jyn turn cold. “Jyn,” Cassian says, low and hurried, his thumb still moving over her skin, distracting and centering all at once, “I—”

She shakes her head, feels as though her brain is taking on water, it sloshes against the walls of her skull. 

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

Cassian presses his brow to hers for a single moment, the hard bone digging against her head before he steps back. His hands fall away.

“Are you hurt? Did they—did they—were you found out—” He shakes his head, hands going to his sides. His holster hangs low on hips, his hand rests atop his blaster for a single second before he braces it against his waist. Jyn swallows, “Don’t tell me you’re going back there—”

“No Jyn it isn’t—” He cuts her off sharply, voice miserable and low. 

She bites her lip. A new thought washes over her, her stomach turns over. There are rules about fraternizing amongst officers. They aren’t strictly enforced but they exist. She touches her lips briefly, curls her fingers into a fist and presses her knuckles down hard like that’ll take back what’s happened. 

Maybe it wasn’t fear holding Cassian back all this time, not the way it was Jyn. Maybe it was something else, his damned nobility and rigid adherence to the Rebellion’s rules. 

She feels stupid. About the kiss. About the scan docs she forged, still waiting for a picture to be added, a face to go with the alias she created. What a pipe dream that had been. Thinking he might really turn his back on the Rebel Alliance with her. 

“Sorry—” she clears her throat roughly, “That won’t happen again, I promise.” (She’ll lock the memory away, deep down, so far away she’ll never think of it again, she swears to herself.)

Cassian looks up at her, eyes so sharp that Jyn wants to flinch away. “Jyn—it isn’t—I have to tell you something. There isn’t much time.”

Jyn folds her arms across her stomach, wishes there was more light, more space, more of whatever she might need to keep herself together. 

Cassian steps forward again but he doesn’t reach for her this time and Jyn struggles not to look at his mouth, his blasted mouth, still pink with affection, searches for his eyes instead. 

(She’ll remember this, the sight of his face, the light, the shadows, the lingering phantom of touch seeped all over her body. She’ll remember it long after hatred has turned memories of that day brittle and cloudy, this one moment crystalline and perfect.)

“Jyn,” Cassian says, brow heavy with regret, with disbelief. His mouth moves and Jyn almost can’t hear him, can’t understand what he says over the roaring blood in her ears. 

She’ll never forget this, will carry Cassian’s words like a brand pressed directly into the muscle of her rattling heart. 

“Your father’s alive, Jyn.”

-

This is what Cassian wishes he might have told Jyn: 

He thought of her every single day he was away, looked at the seascape of Kamino and saw the grey-green of her eyes, storm-ridden and broken as they were that first day aboard the shuttle that took them both from Eadu.

She had her father’s eyes. 

Of all the things he learned on that planet, walking through Imperial facilities, fear a constant companion from the moment he woke to the moment he laid his head down for a few hours of fitful sleep, that was the one thing that would stay with him for the rest of his life. 

How it was Jyn’s eyes he saw staring back at him from Galen Erso’s face.


	16. Chapter 16

It all happens at once. 

The words leave his mouth and she feels as though all the air has disappeared, as though the U-wing were airborne and they’d broken atmo without properly calibrating the jump to hyperspace. Everything inside her shakes like a shuttle caught in an asteroid field, a lonely vessel pitching itself amongst countless stars.

Her lips move but she barely recognizes her own voice when she speaks. “You’re wrong.” Because Cassian must be wrong. It’s happened before, he’s been wrong before—when he lied to her about who and what he was, when he stalled and argued and delayed her attempts to join the Rebellion, when he left without saying goodbye and left knowing he was going on a dead-man’s errand and Jyn wouldn’t even have a picture of him to remember him by—and he’s wrong now. Because her father is dead. Papa died that night on Eadu. Jyn left him because he was dead. 

Cassian shakes his head, steps towards her, reaches for her shoulders but doesn’t grab hold. “I didn’t believe it at first myself but I saw him, Jyn. I saw him with my own eyes. He was there. As alive as you or me. He’s—I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t sure of what I saw.” His face is half-shadows, but there’s nothing to hide the desperation in his voice, urging her to belief him. 

Jyn hugs her arms closer. She feels as though her heart has stalled, her stomach lined with lead. She wants to believe Cassian, perhaps more than ever before, wants to think its possible that Papa is really—

Three years. Three years alone while Jyn mourned and tried to forget the bitterness and resentment that colored their years together on Eadu, years spent trying to preserve the grey-green memories of Lah’mu when Mama and Papa were infallible to her. Everlasting. 

The thought of him alone makes her stomach tighten like a fist prepared to strike, makes her fingertips numb and her skin seize as though ready to break at any junction. 

“Jyn?” Cassian half-whispers, and his hand hovers at her elbow, just a breath away but he might as well be screaming her name across a hangar, it seems to ring in every corner of the ship and echo in her ears. 

The floor of U-wing tilts under her feet, the bulkhead spins. Jyn remembers the rain slick platform, Papa lying on the ground across the way as K-2SO dragged her away. The fire. The foundations of the base shaking underfoot, unstable in the wake of explosions. Papa lying so still.

So still. And Jyn left him, just let herself be taken away and left him there. She left him there to rot, she thought, and either way, if Cassian’s right or Cassian’s wrong, she did. 

Jyn left him there to be imprisoned again. Alone. She left him alone with the Empire and Krennic to do with as they wished. All these years busying her hands with the Alliance’s work and her father— _Papa_ —

“Are you sure—are you really sure? Would you swear it Cassian? Could you—”

Cassian grabs her hand, his fingers are so cold around hers as they squeeze tight and give no quarter. “I swear by everything Jyn—by everything— I saw him. And he was alive.”

Jyn’s body feels like a foreign planet, uncharted and threatening in its mystery. Her head moves after a moment and she thinks she nods, but her neck and her skull and her spine all feel like individual entities operating on their own without any kind of input from her brain. Blood pounds in her ears and her eyes sting with the exhaustion she’s been carrying for weeks, for months, for years. 

Papa.

Jyn licks at the lips, tries to wipe away the dryness, the tightness at the corners of her mouth that feel primed to tear if she moves her mouth too swiftly. Her stomach lurches threateningly, but she clenches her teeth down tight, swallows the panic prickling in her chest. There’s so much she needs to know. If Cassian’s right—he thinks he’s right, she knows that much if true here. Cassian truly believes it was her father he saw. Alive. 

“Is that—was he why you went there? Did they send you there because you thought there was a chance of this or did you—”

Cassian runs a hand through his hair, ruins the already unruly mess of it. “No, stars no, Jyn I swear I didn’t know! I—” He exhales, the sound jagged in the small hold of the ship. “It’s a weapons facility operating under high ranking Imperial officers. I never thought—I wasn’t prepared for this.” He sounds so dumbfounded, and she believes the authenticity, the way it slackens his vowels and sharpens his consonants, how his hands move with greater impatience than normal with every gesture. 

Papa. (“Whatever I do, I do it to protect you.”) 

Hope unfurls like a long lowered standard, torn and ragged as it is, it rises in Jyn to half-mast, catches the first hints of a breeze and expands. 

Papa. (“Stardust.”)

She curls her hands into fists. Squeezes her fingers so hard her knuckles crack. If Cassian is right, if Papa is alive—her tongue fumbles at picking out the first of a dozen questions clamoring to take their place on her tongue. “Is he—was he alright? Is he—did you speak to him? Did you tell him who—did you—”

Cassian shakes his head again. “We didn’t speak. There wasn’t a chance for it. But I know what I saw Jyn. Whatever he’s doing, he’s still operating under Director Krennic—”

Jyn recoils, stung back into near-fury, “You mean he’s still his prisoner. They’re still forcing him to do their work—”

Cassian sighs hard, “Whatever his title, he’s still doing the work Jyn. They’re working on something there. No one seems to have a full understanding of what. Everything I gathered was a piece, a part of part. But your father’s name was on most of them. And whatever it is, it’s big.”

“That doesn’t mean he wants to do it—” She starts, protective of Papa’s reputation in a way she thought she’d been able to lay to rest long ago. 

“Jyn—” Cassian says, tries again, hands raised in a placating motion but Jyn pushes them aside, steps past him towards the doors, stomach heaving further up her throat with every step. She can't breathe. 

"We have to go back." She exhales, trying to get enough air inside herself to force the words out. "We can't just leave him there Cassian--we have to go--you have to take me with you and we have to get him out."

Draven. This is what Draven's wanted all along, isn’t it? To know what Papa was doing all those years on Eadu. If the project’s expanded beyond its conceptual state, the blue prints and schematics Jyn can still sometimes see on the backs of her eyelids, then there’s more reason than ever before to want to rescue her father. Who better to hear it from then Papa himself? 

Papa will know, he'll know what to do, who to trust and once he's free Jyn can take him too, they can be free of this place and these people, they can go back to Lah'mu and bury Mama properly out by the salt lake where she held Jyn up and they can live their lives.

Cassian catches her hand. He stops her, pulls her back with a sharp tug. "Jyn—" 

Jyn catches herself to keep from stumbling back into him, twists on her heel to face him. There isn’t the time for this, she wants to snap. Papa is out there, Papa is alive, and this time Jyn won’t leave him. She can’t. 

"The General—”Jyn starts, tries invoking Draven’s name to bring Cassian back to attention, get him focused on the task at hand. “What did he say when you told him?" Cassian's face turns into a slate mask and in the shadows he looks like a stranger. His fingers squeeze around the thin bones of Jyn’s wrist and then drop away. 

"I haven't told him, Jyn. He doesn't know."

Jyn grabs for his arm, tries to tug him forward but Cassian remains still, inmovable, as though reluctant to step into the light. "Cassian, c'mon, we have to tell him, he needs to know he's a alive, that he needs to be rescued--think of all the information he'll have now—”

Cassian pulls his arm back and Jyn with it, pulls her back into the deeper shadows of the ship's interior. When he speaks his voice is pitched low, a conspirator's whisper. Or a guilty man's confession. "If I tell General Draven you're father's alive Jyn, there won't be a rescue."

He says it like it pains him, like the words pull something out of him he can't live without. Jyn forgets how to breathe. "The Alliance will really just leave a prisoner of the Empire to rot?"

Cassian hangs his head, his shoulders shudder and then go stone still. He lifts his head. His gaze is unflinching. "No Jyn. There won’t be a rescue because the Alliance never meant to rescue your father. He’s too important to the Emperor’s plans, you understand. The things he’s capable of—"

She pulls her hand away as though she's been burned. Her palm throbs and she thinks if she were to glance down at her fingertips they would be blistered, skin curling into itself and peeling away from the bone. 

“We’re all capable of terrible things Lieutenant.” The words are pointed, unforgiving, and Cassian flinches. “Does that mean we don’t deserve better?” 

Cassian looks down at the shadowed outline of his boots, his dark head bobbing in front of her. He can't seem to decide between looking her in the eye and looking away. Jyn's eyes stay fixed on him. “Jyn—it wouldn’t be my decision, you need to know that—and it isn’t excuse, I know it sounds like one but I need you to understand the decision was made long before you—and there’s no—the way things are, the Alliance needs to pick its battles Jyn. It has to prioritize in order to ensure the most people will benefit—” This is the closest to rambling Cassian’s ever come and while there’s a part of Jyn that wants to laugh at it, the nervous, boyishness of it that seems so beneath Lieutenant Cassian Andor, the humor of the situation is easily lost in the cold dread that every single word drops in Jyn’s belly. 

"That night, that mission—Jyn I've wanted to tell you a hundred times but I’ve never know how."

_Tell me what?_ She almost asks but the words won't come unstuck from the lining of her throat, like burrs they only dig in deeper the harder she tugs. Cassian looks at her like a man seeking a lifeline but Jyn's hands are empty, aching with the force she has to enact to keep her composure when she wants to do is scream and cry and rage. She has nothing to offer him.

_Tell me now._

Cassian rubs at his jaw, his fingers twitch over his beard in a way that makes Jyn uneasy. His shoulders drop and then pull tight, set themselves in a solid line. He looks like a man staring down the barrel of a blaster, ready for the trigger to be pulled. 

“That night our orders weren’t to extract anyone, Jyn. We were told—all the intel pointed towards the installation at Eadu being important to some kind of weapons’ program. The plan was to destroy the base, whatever kind of factory it might be.”

Jyn rears back, snarls. “And what? Any personnel on site were acceptable collateral damage.”

Cassian doesn’t look away from her. 

Jyn wracks her memory of that night, turns it over again and again, tries to pull back from the image that’s haunted her most, Papa lying on the platform, unmoving, the ghost of him following her as she leaves him behind. 

The rebel bombs. Like a rotting tooth at the back of the mouth, something worried over unconsciously and with intent, a detail Jyn’s tried to ignore, that she told herself she’d learned to live with. That Papa had only ever been a victim of chance, the same ill-luck that led him to Krennic before Jyn was ever born, the same bad star that resulted in their discovery on Lah’mu. And while it wasn’t forgiveness in her chest she told herself she could move on, carry the weight of the loss on her back and still take a step forward. Her burden to carry for surviving. 

But it wasn’t fate that decided Papa had to die that day— _he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive_ —it was the Alliance.

It’s the Alliance that’s deciding that he’ll die now. 

“No one knew they were holding a civilian captive there Jyn—” Cassian starts, as though that matters, as though that might excuse everything else he’s already said. Jyn lashes out before the sound has finished leaving his lips. But it isn’t her knuckles that knock into his face, she strikes him with the flat of her palm, the sting of the impact lashes across her skin. 

He catches her wrist before she can land the next blow and she struggles to pull her arm free. His grip holds tight. It becomes a tugging war, Cassian and Jyn inelegant and clumsy in their movements, and they crash against the rear bulkhead together, a clamor of limbs. The ground falls away beneath her feet and she finds herself on the ground, Cassian half-pinned beneath her. Her wrist is still captured in his hold. 

“You bastard.” She hisses, “You kriffing bastard. You knew this whole time—you knew every single day and you just let me fall in line like an idiot.” 

Cassian struggles beneath her, his knee jerks and he unbalances her, sends them both rolling. She digs her elbow low into the soft hollow of his belly. He grunts and tries to capture her arms again. She bites his cheek. Hard. 

“You bastard.” She curses him, again and again, “You lying bastard.”

He keeps saying her name, an apology, an excuse, but it just makes Jyn angrier, makes her fight harder. He’s cut off suddenly, voice choked and as suddenly as he gained the upper hand and pinned her he’s gone, sprawled across from Jyn with Makkal’s there, standing over them in silent fury, blaster in hand. She has it trained on Cassian and there’s a second—small though it maybe it—where Jyn finds herself wishing Makkal would pull the trigger. 

-

Makkal keeps tea in her room. Jyn stares at the small electric range and the dinged kettle set atop it, steam whistling thinly through the spout as the water inside it begins to boil. She never thought of Makkal as much of a tea drinker, not when she drinks her caf black, two or three cups at a time whenever she can manage it. But she keeps a small tin of papery scatchels in a box in one corner of her quarters. She only has one bunkmate at the moment and at their somewhere off-world for the time being. Makkal doesn’t elaborate she just orders Jyn to sit and tells her she’s making tea and that Jyn will drink it. 

It doesn’t smell like much when Makkal places the tin mug in Jyn’s hand, the heat of it bleeding down her fingers. The water inside is a murky amber shade, steam curling off the surface of as Jyn stares into its shallow depths. 

“What is it?” Jyn asks, blinking up at Makkal, whose shed her outermost jacket and removed her holster already. She’s pouring hot water into her own cup, doesn’t look at Jyn until she’s done. 

“Looking for the recipe?” She says cheekily, sitting on the thin bedroll opposite Jyn on the stone floor. “Just leaves and water, Erso. Drink it. It’ll warm you up.”

“I’m not cold.” Jyn protests weakly but Makkal’s already fixed her with a skewering look. “Drink it anyhow.”

Jyn takes a sip. It’s scald the tip of her tongue but cools her throat, spreads warmth down her chest all the way to her belly. 

Makkal drinks her own tea quietly and Jyn knows she won’t ask what it is she walked in on. She’s seen Jyn and Cassian fight before, but their disagreements have never devolved into physical confrontations outside the training ring. Jyn’s good with a blaster but Cassian’s always been better. But Jyn’s always been able to get the best of him in hand-to-hand. She would have had him even without Makkal’s intervention and her hands ache with the urge to do more, to strike hard and mercilessly. To make him hurt. 

“What do you know about the attack on Eadu?” Jyn asks, holds her breath waiting for an answer. The mug in her hand is hollow, light, and she squeezes her fingers around it tight. Makkal was Cassian’s friend before she ever knew Jyn, or as close to a friend as Cassian’s ever truly had. A superior officer he trusted enough to pass Jyn off to when he was told he couldn’t keep her in his guard at all time. Her stomach tips behind her navel and she stumbles back into years’ old paranoia, when she first learned Cassian was a spy and Jyn distrusted even the shadows at her back. 

“Not as much as you’d like, I don’t think. But I’ve heard things. Made some conclusions.” Makkal looks at Jyn carefully. “It isn’t every day a civilian gets brought to base after an attack on an Imperial base.” She snort ruefully. “A child no less. Intelligence wouldn’t have worked so hard to keep you in its orbit if you weren’t of some kind of value.”

Jyn lets the words sink in, chews her lip, all the words she can think to say knock against her teeth with force enough to draw blood. _My father is alive_ , she thinks with the beginnings of hysteria in her throat, cold and pulsing. 

“Cassian knew—Cassian knows—”Jyn mumbles, the anger still strong in her belly. Quieter but deeper still. Makkal grips her knee. “You tried to tell me. A hundred times, you warned me about him and I—I didn’t want to believe you.” 

“Erso—”

“Was I of value to you?” Jyn asks, and she doesn’t mean for it to happen but her voice cracks at the rise. She feels as though she’s back in the pit, alone, waiting. 

Makkal slides her arm over Jyn’s shoulders, pulls her in until they’re temple to temple. She runs her hand over the back of Jyn’s head, cradles her close with one rough hand over the nape of her neck. 

“No Jyn. You were my friend.”

Jyn clenches her eyes closed, takes a deep ragged breath. 

“Makkal,” she starts, because Makkal deserves to know, now more than ever, now that there is no other path Jyn can see before her. No other choice. Makkal deserves to know this much even if Jyn can't trust her with everything. "There's something you should know." 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR

As she does most other things, Makkal takes Jyn’s news in stride. She doesn’t bellow, doesn’t rage, doesn’t rebuke. She runs a single imploring palm over Jyn’s messy hair and says, “You’re a smart girl Erso. And a good fighter. You’ll make it just fine on out there.” She touches the side of Jyn’s face for a moment, studies Jyn with her sharp grey eyes. For the first time in their acquaintance Jyn looks at Makkal’s face and sees more than weariness, more than exhaustion. Jyn sees years and years of this toil, the strain of warfare. She looks ancient to Jyn’s eyes in a way that she never has before, her skin thin around her eyes and lines creasing the corners of her mouth. 

Jyn doesn’t even know how old she is. She’s never thought to ask.

They might very well be strangers. 

Jyn swallows, something close to shame rising in her throat, but Makkal pulls her hands away and then pushes herself to her feet. 

“You ought to get some rest now.” Makkal says decisively. She crosses the room in quick measured strides, rummaging in a battered looking trunk in one corner until she pulls out a blanket. “You can stay here tonight.” Makkal says motioning towards her barrack mate’s bedroll. The blanket is as scratchy as every other blanket Jyn’s handled during her time with the Rebellion, but it smells of something spicy when she shakes it out. It settles warm on the back of Jyn’s tongue when she slips beneath it, breathes deep and slow as though that’ll help her loosen the knot at the center of her chest. 

Makkal moves about the room and then plunges them into darkness. Jyn listens to her as she makes her way into her own bedroll and then there’s nothing between them but silence. 

The tea in her belly and the ache in her chest leaves every single one of her limbs heavy as iron, her eyes closed before she’s even made the decision to try and sleep. Lights play out like sun flares on the backs of her eyelids like lightening bolts cut across a night sky, and the heat at the backs of her eyes presses forward. She wipes at her cheek as the first tear leaks out. The full force of the day bears down on her, steals the air from her lungs. 

Jyn feels as anchorless as she did that day she waited at the bottom of a pit, as helpless as when they pulled her kicking and snarling from that cave on Lah’mu.

Sleep steals over her without her consent and Jyn dreams in splinters and shards. Every second of it digs under her skin and tears some piece of her apart. 

_Papa,_ she screams across the burning platform on Eadu. In her dream Papa gets to his feet, rushes towards her, hands outstretched. Jyn reaches back, sixteen and rain-drenched, strains against the arms restraining her. Jyn struggles, kicks and twists, snarls and snaps, she fights like she fought against the troopers who captured her on Lah’mu, scratches at the arms holding her around her waist. Cassian’s grip never loosens and Papa falls away.

-

She wakes up to Makkal crouched close. It’s impossible to know how long she’s slept in the small windowless room, but there’s a chrono close enough for Jyn to see that she’s slept later than usual. When she makes to get up Makkal shakes her head. “Stay. I’m going to tell Maissi that you’re under the weather. Don’t worry. Just—keep your head down until I come back.” Her hand squeezes Jyn’s shoulder briefly. “Rest, alright?”

Makkal’s hardly soft-spoken but there’s gentleness in her touch, her tone, the way she leaves Jyn lying on a borrowed bedroll in her quarters that makes the hurt of the previous day ache all the worse. It seems foolish to trust anyone now but distrusting Makkal feels inconceivable if for no other reason than because Jyn knows at her heart that any betrayal from Makkal would be straightforward and swift. Makkal doesn’t have the patience for subterfuge. 

Sleep doesn’t come back for her and resting isn’t a skill Jyn’s ever bothered practicing. It isn’t long at all before she’s shucked the blanket aside. She makes sure to fold it neatly once she’s up, leaves it atop the trunk Makkal fetched it from the night before.

Jyn doesn’t know what she expects outside the walls of Makkal’s quarters, feels as though everyone around her ought to be staring. As though some of part of her gives away everything that’s happened since yesterday, since the week before that, since that night on Eadu burned itself into her skin. Someone must know she fought an officer of the Rebellion, that she means to run away now, that her father is alive, that her heart is torn apart with anger. She feels it all so deeply it seems impossible to her that she can stand in a communal ‘fresher or wander down a hall and not attract the eyes of everyone around her.

But no one looks.

Jyn’s as insignificant to the rebels on Dantooine as she was to the Imperial officers who guarded over her on Eadu, and no one spares a glance for her as she walks purposefully towards the storage room where she keeps the majority of her supplies.

She doesn’t have a plan anymore. Whatever plan she thought she had is in shambles and now Jyn feels like she’s rifling through the wreckage to figure out what she’s going to do. She needs to get out. Makkal won’t report her for desertion, Jyn’s sure of it, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t. If Draven finds out from Cassian what happened between them aboard the U-wing he’ll be keeping a closer eye on her, undoubtedly resume his regular interrogations. There won’t be anymore of this playing the part of a rebel soldier for Jyn, Draven will throw her in a cell no better than the one Krennic threw her in and keep her close until he’s satisfied he’s gotten everything he can from her. And Cassian—

The thought of him almost pulls Jyn short. 

Cassian _will_ tell Draven. If not about their fight then about her father. He’ll make his report, if he hasn’t already, and the Rebellion will finish what it start three years ago. They’ll send someone to kill Papa once and for all. Jyn’s throat pulls tight, anger and hurt and sorrow tightening around her windpipe like fingers squeezing into a fist. _General Draven might even send Cassian, his favorite pet._ If there was any air inside her, Jyn would scream. 

“Jyn Erso.”

It feels like history repeating itself, staring up at K-2SO’s imposing form standing in front of her. The droid studies her with his usual air of disinterest, his optics flashing and dimming. “You and Cassian had a disagreement.” 

Jyn bites her lip, walks around K-2 and resumes her quick pace. She can’t go where she meant to go, not until she’s lost him and the frustration of being delayed feeds into every other grievance she carries with her. “Leave me alone bolt bag, I don’t want to talk to him. Or you.”

“He said you’d say that. He said you’d had a disagreement.” Knowing Cassian he really did undersell their fight yesterday as nothing more than a mild disagreement. Maybe he thought with enough time Jyn might come around to his way of seeing things. That she might forgive him for lying to her every single day for three years. If he appeared in front of her right now Jyn thinks she’d gladly finish what she started last night.

K-2 doesn’t let up, follows after Jyn at a steady untroubled pace. “I am noticeably _not_ Cassian.” He says as though Jyn might not be aware of the fact. “And _we_ have not had a disagreement yet. So you don’t have a reason not to talk to me.”

Jyn snorts, takes another left turn until she realizes where she’s going. The hangar is likely to be full at this time of day, and the chances of running into Cassian himself aren’t low enough for Jyn to risk it. She turns back around, stares up at K-2. She’s not so angry she’s willing to break every bone in her hand taking a swing at the droid but the temptation is there, eating away at Jyn’s stomach like so much acid. “Talk to you? There’s nothing to talk to either of you about. Or is there Kay?” 

K-2 stares down at her unblinking. “You and Cassian had a disagreement. But he would not tell me what it was about.” He tips his head to the side, “I suspect it has something to do with him ignoring my suggestions not to tell you about what he believes he saw on Kamino.”

Like always K-2 says it as easily as he might read out the data about the weather, but his words yank hard on the thread choking the air in Jyn’s lungs. Jyn spares a second to study the corridor around them then pulls on one of K-2SO’s heavy arms until he follows her into one of the bunkers used to store ammo. It’s far from full. “What did _you_ see on Kamino?” 

K-2 tilts his round head in the opposite direction, “Information about the mission would be considered classified—”

“And what about my father? Is he classified?”

K-2 nods, “Yes.”

Jyn makes a harsh impatient noise, “He’s my father, Kay, if he’s really alive—he’s the only family I have—I need to know. Did you see him?”

K-2 whirs considerately. “Cassian believes he did.” 

Jyn takes a step back, heart picking up behind her ribs. The treacherous arm of hope reaches out and grips her lungs tight, the way a rattled soldier grips a thermal detonator in the middle of an assault. Jyn peers into K-2’s expressionless face and doesn’t know what she wants to hear when she asks him, “And you?”

K-2 bows his head, “I could not say with a hundred percent surety that the man Cassian saw was Galen Erso.”

Jyn swallows hard. ( _Papa._ ) “You couldn’t?”

(Maybe Cassian is wrong. Maybe Papa isn’t on Kamino after all. That doesn’t make it easier to forgive the last three years though does it? Even Papa is really dead, Jyn knows now she can’t stay with the Rebellion, that she never could. But it might help, Jyn thinks desperately, it might lessen the weight of the stone strapped to her chest. Because if Papa’s dead than he’s not still trapped, not still forced to work alongside that monster, to do his work. At least if Papa’s dead than Jyn didn’t really leave him behind when she let K-2 carry her away—)

“I told Cassian that there was only a sixty-seven percent facial match as well as a number of reasons for his name to be present on certain documents. It would be premature of us to report that Galen Erso is indeed alive without further evidence.”

It takes every fiber of her strength not to drop her head at K-2SO’s response. _Numbers_. That’s all her father’s life is to K-2SO. Jyn shakes her head. 

“Cassian is sure though.” She says, speaking mostly to herself. 

K-2 hears her all the same. “He is.”

“And he’ll tell Draven.”

That prickle of anger, needling up and down the length of her spine. “Tell me something K-2. That night on Eadu, why did you rescue me?”

K-2SO takes a moment to respond. “Cassian said I had to.” 

Jyn wipes at her eyes. She doesn’t know when they filled, but there’s that choking hopelessness from the night before, the bitter truth that coated the back of her throat as she lay silently in the dark of Makkal’s bunk.

K-2 sounds nearly annoyed when he says, “Now you’ve had a disagreement.”

Jyn sucks in a jagged breath. Cassian Andor made his choice long before he ever met her. Jyn doesn’t know why she ever thought he might pick her over the Rebellion. More importantly, Jyn hates herself for wanting him to. He made his choice and killed her father, or as good as. The good of the galaxy over Jyn and her family and he would have her understand. Jyn chews on her lip, tries to swallow the pressure in her chest, the kriffing bastard probably thought there was nobility in the sacrifice. What did it matter to him that it wasn’t his sacrifice to make.

“Yes K-2, we had a disagreement.” Jyn spits out, the words like scraps of metal in her mouth, “I have to go Kay—I can’t—I can’t talk about this right now.”

“He’s been very despondent all morning. If you could—” K-2 asks, waving one large hand. 

Jyn doesn’t stick around to hear whatever else the droid has to say. 

-

“So when I said stay put you decided that meant you should—”

“I had to check on something.” Jyn says wearily, accepting the roll Makkal offers her. She doesn’t stop to check whatever its stuffed with, just takes a large bite and continues deleting files from her datapad. She doesn’t need the half completed scan docs anymore. 

Makkal looks unimpressed but settled down opposite her to eat her own food, and they sit in companionable silence for a while. 

“Where will you go?” She asks after a moment. 

Jyn looks up, bites the corner of her mouth. “I don’t know.” She admits, “I don’t—I hadn’t decided yet.” The thought of leaving in the middle of mission, of leaving her squadron leaderless off base makes her stomach ache, but anything else seems out of the question. “I don’t have a ship and even if I could get my hands on one, I’d need a pilot.”

“And once you’re out there? What will you do? You could probably make a decent living working security along the Outer Rim, if I’m being honest.” 

“I read once that piracy was a profitable career path.” Jyn says blandly, taking another massive bite of her roll. It’s nice, for a moment, to talk about this with someone.

Makkal hums low in her throat. “Not as profitable as holodramas would make it out to be, I’m sure. And only slightly more legal on the Empire’s scale than rebel solider.” Makkal’s lips twist somewhat ruefully and Jyn shrugs. 

Makkal looks at her long and hard and for a second Jyn’s afraid she’s going to ask what happened between her and Cassian, what it exactly it was she walked in on. Jyn doesn’t know whether to let Makkal think what she will and fill in the blanks or if she owes her better. Makkal’s known Cassian longer than she has Jyn, in some way, had enough of a relationship with him that Cassian felt he could entrust Jyn’s wellbeing to her all those years ago. Jyn opens her mouth. _My father’s alive and I need to find him._ she thinks but she can’t. She can’t put the weight of that truth in Makkal’s hands.

“Right. I’d hate to get on the Empire’s bad side.”

-

“He’ll take you as far as the Nevis space port.” Makkal says softly, close at Jyn’s elbow as they make their way towards the secondary hangar in the southernmost part of the rebel base. It’s less frequented then the main hangar bay, the site of scrap heaps and ships being taken apart for parts. 

Jyn’s heart is wedged in her throat, beats and pulses as though it’s trying to leap free from out her mouth. 

Three solar cycles. That’s how long it took Makkal to finish what Jyn started and find her transport off world. Her pack weighs heavy on her back, loaded with every precious item Jyn was able to stow away. Since that night in Makkal’s quarters Makkal’s been a woman on a mission, pulling strings and making arrangements without giving away a single aspect of her plan until a short hour before when she pulled Jyn into a spare bunker and told her it was now or never.

“Here.” Makkal says, just outside the hangar doors, glancing around as though to make sure they haven’t been followed. The base is quiet, the hallway empty except for them. It’s late, just a skeleton crew on shift but Jyn still feels rattled, panic needling her spine. Any moment now she expects Draven and a band of armed rebels to appear to stop her, but there’s nothing but shadows following at their heels. Makkal places a small leather purse in Jyn’s hand, curls her fingers around the bulk of it. The credits inside shift under the press of her fingertips. “It isn’t much, but it’ll help. The Outer Rim isn’t known much for hospitality.” Jyn touches the drawstrings on the bag. She swallows the urge to refuse the charity but isn’t so proud to ignore how desperately she needs it. Makkal’s hand squeezes around Jyn’s. “Remember where you’re going?”

Jyn nods, recites the instructions Makkal’s drilled in her memory. “Transport to Loedun. Go to the Blue Shingle. Third level. Seventh quadrant.” 

Makkal’s fingers tighten. “Joisa will find you.”

Jyn wants to ask for the hundredth time in the hour about Joisa Makkal, but there’s no time now and she’s asked too much of Makkal already. Her last favor still sits heavy on her tongue.

Chetol Svel is waiting for them by his ship, eyes them both nervously as they approach. “Alright then?” Svel asks, picking at his dirty nails. “Let’s go.” 

He’s talking mostly to Makkal, not quite meeting Jyn’s eyes in a way that’s so unlike his usual boisterous persona at the sabaac table.

Makkal nods tersely, holds Jyn back for a fraction of a second after Svel climbs aboard. “If Josia doesn’t show promise me something, alright Erso?” Jyn nods dumbly, the kyber crystal at her throat growing oddly hot against her skin. Or maybe that’s just the blood in her veins warming, flushing her face and stinging her eyes. (“Whatever I do, I do it to protect you. Say you understand.”) “Promise you’ll stay alive.” Makkal says, and it sounds more like an order than a request. “Whatever else you do, do that. Who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other again someday.” She offers Jyn a fraction of a smile and Jyn grabs hold of her forearm, grips it hard. “Thank you, for everything, I owe you—”

Makkal shakes her head, “Shut up and get on the ship will you. I’m sure Svel is counting every second of this and adding it to my bill.” 

Jyn barks a weak laugh, hopes her knees don’t buckle when she takes the first step back, away. “May the Force be with you.” Trust the Force Mama said and Jyn doesn't know that she does but she wants to right now, more than ever. She wants to believe it can watch out for Makkal after Jyn goes.

Amadna pushes at her shoulder, urging her to go. “Yeah, yeah. You too.” 

-

Jyn watches Dantooine disappear, a small emerald sphere shrinking and shrinking in the ship’s viewport until it disappears in a blur of white light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God the last month was brutal y'all. Work was every kind of crazy and school exploded into a fiery mess and just life felt like a trash fire. As it sometimes does. 
> 
> But I'm still writing this and I am going to finish it! 
> 
> Thank you, each and ever person who reads this. Y'all the best and I wish you nothing but great things in the new year.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Making it under the wire as far as two updates in a single month! Woot \@/
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who is accompanying me on this ride!

Describing The Blue Shingle as a snake pit would be an act of generosity. Jyn knows as much within seconds of setting foot across the threshold. The whole thing stinks of smoke and spirits, the air trapped inside stale and stagnant, it burns at the back of Jyn’s throat with every step she takes further into the small windowless rooms. It looks like everything else Jyn’s seen since she jumped off the transport that brought her to Loedun, a small Outer Rim moon so far removed from the galaxy Jyn’s surprised it doesn’t qualify as uncharted space. It’s a mining world, only the topmost ranks of its society still left above ground, all the rest of its populous moved underground, creating a maze-like cityscape in abandoned mineshafts.

Being so far underground makes Jyn’s skin crawl, makes her want to rush back to the rickety lift that brought her here, back up the rusting ladder she snuck down between the third and fourth levels that brought her that far. Jyn wants to climb until she hits open air and can see whatever sky can be glimpsed between the thick smog-cloud that blanketed the entire world through the viewport of her transport. But Makkal sent her to the here and she wouldn’t have asked this of Jyn without good reason. So Jyn takes a deep, burning breath, pushes further into the room, tries to find cracks between the crowd of patrons to find her way to the bar. There’s bodies seemingly everywhere, crammed onto the benches bolted to the floor at random throughout the room, perched atop the miniscule tables secured to the dirty walls, strewn across the uneven slate floor, all in different states of consciousness and all apparently uncaring of the people standing almost directly atop them. 

It the chaotic nature of it all makes Jyn’s head swim, her eyes struggling to adjust to the low light. She can’t make much out through the crowd, too short to see over the majority of it, stifled in the midst of an unmoving mass. She steps on a foot, elbows passed a drunk breathing too heavily down her neck. Someone makes the mistake of grabbing at Jyn’s hip and Jyn twists their fingers back until she hears something pop. 

There’s sweat on her brow by the time she makes it to what passes for the bar, wrangles her way to a place amongst the wall of patrons pawing to reach over and snag one of the bottles setting along the back wall. Jyn adjusts the scarf Makkal gave her to wear over her hair, grey-green fabric scratchy under her hands, and watches the bar keep who seems almost amused, prodding at those with the longest arms with an electrified baton. There’s the nearly constant buzz of laughter from the wall at Jyn’s elbows, as though they were all spectators at the best sort of game. 

A battered droid with mismatched optics wheels towards Jyn, extends a sparking prong from its chassis. “You must have credits to stand there.” The old thing practically wheezes at her, and the prong cracks threateningly. Jyn growls, slapping a few credits down on the counter. 

“A bottle of whatever you’re peddling.” (“It’ll all be vile, believe me. Most of these places brew their own poison, strong enough to strip the paint off an X-wing. Don’t go in expecting more than a sloppy buzz and the worst headache of your life an hour later.” Makkal warned her as she helped Jyn stow her hard-kept supplies in her already bulging pack. Jyn nodded and tried to commit every word to memory.)

The droid withdraws with a wobbling rattle, rolls away only to return with a small, squat jar that smells like actual engine fuel when Jyn unscrews the cap. She peers into the jar in the poor light and can’t make out anything. The stranger at her left lets out a cackling bark. “Girlie ‘fraid to take her medicine?” Jyn presses her free hand to her blaster and reminds herself she isn’t here to make a scene. She ignores the stranger and takes a sip. 

The pilots used to run a kind of market on Dantooine, makeshift and inconstant though it was. Men like Svel sold everything from socks to liquor, picked up off world during the occasional mission. There was planet-brewed stuff that made the rounds during game nights at the Sabaac tables, and Jyn tasted her first drop of alcohol there, throat spasming at the taste of the stuff. Ignition fluid would probably go down smoother. 

The spirits she drinks at the Blue Shingle makes the stuff Svel shared seem like a well-aged liquor, the sort of thing Krennic might bring for him and Papa to share at one of their horrible dinners. 

It takes everything in Jyn not to gag on the taste of it. She forces herself not to spit violently back into the jar, her eyes burning as she swallows. There's a sharp laugh from somewhere behind her and Jyn coughs into her wrist, hopes no ones looking. 

"You'd have been better off saving your credits and just inhaling straight from an exhaust port, miss." Comes a low, amused voice from beside her. It makes Jyn jump, caught unawares. She hadn’t even heard him approach. 

She narrows her eyes at the stranger, watches him lean against the edge of the bar. His face is nearly indecipherable, smooth as it is, just a shadow at Jyn’s side. His scalp is shorn nearly smooth, his eyes dark as obsidian. He signals with one gloved hand, not at the droid but the sentient barkeep, who nods in return. “This way, miss.” He says, gesturing over his shoulder. Jyn curls her fingers along the edge of the bar, mentally assesses every weapon on her person and how quickly she can reach the nearest one. There’s not nearly enough room for her to make the best use of her truncheon and the blaster would attract too much attention, even in this crowd. A blade maybe, but that’s all the way in her boot—she does not think that Cassian gave it to her, does not allow sentiment to deprive her of a valuable weapon—but the stranger is already pushing his way away from the bar and Jyn as little choice but to follow. 

He rounds the bar and Jyn ducks another patron to keep him in sight, hurries enough that she catches sight of him palming something to the barkeep who opens a hatch in a narrow gap of floor space behind the bar. There’s a few steps visible and then nothing but darkness. The stranger doesn’t stop to see if Jyn’s followed, he begins his descent. The barkeep looks on with disinterest, barely motioning for Jyn to follow. She takes a rattled breath and steadies herself, takes one step and then another, fists her hands tight as she steps down onto the first uneven landing. The hatch closes as soon as her head has cleared the opening, and Jyn does her best not to startle at the nearly silent hissing sound it makes as it seals shut. She goes still, body frozen in place as her eyes grow accustomed to the dark. She blinks a few times, becomes aware of the dim grey lights dotting the ceiling, casting just enough light for her to keep track of the man up ahead. Jyn climbs down another step. 

The air is cooler down below, and there’s an odd metallic tang to it the deeper she goes. The chaotic roar of the bar overhead is a distant rumble now by the time the downward slope of the stairs finally stops. The narrow passage opens into a kind of cellar, dimly lit by more of the pale grey lights, a round low-ceilinged room, the walls lined with shelves packed with a mess of items that don’t seem to follow any rhyme or reason. The stranger isn’t thrown by the mess, he strides to one shelve and procures a bulbous bottle that glints blue in the lowlight. 

Jyn watches him pull the stopper out of the bottle and take a long drink. He exhales heavily when he’s done, offering Jyn the bottle. “Don’t worry it’s not whatever you were enjoying up there.” He says with a too-familiar grin. Jyn shakes her head, her scarf falling back with the motion. 

She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, finds her voice again. “Are you—I’m not sure what you know.”

Josia Makkal clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “And you just followed? Sis is getting sloppy, I see.”

Jyn bristles at the insult. “She told me you’d be here. She wasn’t wrong about that.” 

Josia laughs and it only sets Jyn further on edge. “Easy there, miss.” He takes another drink. “Krestel was it?”

Jyn swallows. She nods.

Josia huffs quietly under his breath. “Well, you’ll want to work on that.”

Jyn plants her feet more firmly, she rests her palm on her blaster. Josia doesn’t miss the gesture. He holds his empty hand up. “Sorry, just an opinion.”

“I didn’t come here for your opinions.” Jyn grunts. Josia drops his hand, shrugs. He takes another drink. “No, you didn’t did you, Miss Dawn.”

Jyn uneasiness feeds her frustration, “If you’re done wasting my time—” 

Josia clicks his tongue again. “I’ve got a feeling you’ve got nothing but time on your hands now Miss Dawn. I know I did when I finally cut loose.” He takes another pull from the bottle. “Honestly, can’t say I wasn’t surprised when Maddie finally called in her favor.” 

Jyn holds her breath for a single painful second. How many favors had Makkal wasted on her? 

.Makkal hadn’t had much to say about her brother, but standing across from him now it’s hard to see anything like a resemblance between the two. Steady, constant, unshakable Makkal is no where to be seen in this man, whose movements and words seem to fall so carelessly. 

“Makkal,” she starts, and that gets a what appears like the first real reaction from Josia, whose eyes fix on Jyn’s face. “Makkal thought you might be able to help me.” 

Josia toys with the bottle in his hands. “What’s she answering to these days anyhow? She a general yet?”

“Not yet,” Jyn says, trying to hold her ground. She worries her tongue along the backs of her teeth. “She thought you might be able to help me find Saw Guerra.”

Josia’s hand pauses as he lifts the bottle yet again. There it is, Jyn thinks, heart quickening with excitement rather than fear for the first time in ages. “Is this a set up?” He asks, with false ease, Jyn sees the stiffening of his shoulders, hears the hardening of his voice. She’s struck close to a nerve and Josia doesn’t have nearly as much skill as Cassian Andor in hiding it. 

Jyn shakes her head. “Can you help me? I need to get in contact with Saw Guerra.” She’d realized it, sitting in Makkal’s quarters. The Rebel Alliance was useless to her, that much was clear, and she was only ever going to be as useful to them as she could be compliant. Cassian would sell her father to Draven for a pat on a head and a new rank on his chest, and then Papa was as good as dead all over again. But Saw, Jyn decided, Saw Guerra didn’t answer to the Rebellion. 

Saw Guerra had once risked the wrath of the Empire to help her family escape, had promised to come to their aid again. Mama and Papa had trusted that promise enough that they had dug a hole at the back of a cave, had devised a hatch door they’d hoped would keep them safe until Saw could keep it and get them to safety once more. 

Jyn doesn’t know much more of Guerra—a militant extremist K-2SO had recited from what data he could access on Guerra’s file—but she knows that. If anyone might be willing or able to help her safe her father now, it will be Saw Guerra. (Hope is such a faint thing, flickering and waning, but right now, standing in the cellar of a snake pit on a dark hole of a mining planet, it feels like all she has to hold on to, so she wraps her hands around it tight.)

“And what’s a slip like you have to do with Saw’s band of merry rebels?” Josia asks, chewing on the words. Jyn can’t help but notice he hasn’t taken another drink since she first mentioned Saw’s name. 

“That’s my business.” Jyn says, reigning in her anger to keep some kind of indifference in place. (She’s always guarded her secrets, Papa’s secrets, the closest, there’s a groove for them carved into the muscle of her heart, deep and bloody.)

“And Saw’s mine.” Josia replies, leaning back against a shelf. “He’s not a man known for taking charity cases.”

Jyn’s ire rises. “This isn’t charity.” She takes a deep breath of stale air. “He’s—an old friend.”

“You don’t look old enough to have old friends, miss.” 

“He knew my parents. They fought together before—in the Clone Wars.” The lie slips smooth off her lips. “And against the Empire.” The truth follows easier.

“If all that’s true then I hope you find him, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.” Josia chews the corner of his mouth, taps a finger against the neck of his bottle. He shrugs, “Saw didn’t exactly leave me a forwarding address when we went our separate ways.” 

Jyn stomach clenches, her heart drops to the soles of her boots.

Josia frowns. “You want my advice miss? You’ve made it this far, keep going. Jump on a transport and don’t stop until you find yourself a patch of galaxy that doesn’t give two licks about this war. Because the only side that’s gonna come out winning is whoever’s alive when it’s all said and done.” 

Jyn swallows around ground glass, “Is that what you’re doing here?” Her eyes are dry, full of dim grey light. “Staying alive?” 

Josia kicks idly at the stone floor. “Doing my best, miss.” At long last he takes another sip. “Don’t think ill. I know what it seems like. Man runs from one army only to run from the other. Burns all his bridges and then spends the rest of his days among scum in a sooty pit. Makes a pretty tragedy, the sort of story you can sell the troops. But it’s not for all that. The real tradegy is getting picked up by the Rebels when you’ve got nothing to your name but the sister at your side. No home, no parents, just a couple of scrawny idiots barely more than kids being told they can get right if they commit to a cause. But the cause is never what anyone says it is, is it?” Jyn stands, frozen in place, listens to the words pouring forth from Josia Makkal’s mouth, quicker and quicker like they’d been building in his throat unsaid for a long while. “Maddie couldn’t see it, how we’d never survive it, fighting the Alliance’s way, always waiting and scuttling away. Saw was a man with vision, before that went sideways too, threw my lot in with him because I thought he’d take us somewhere. Maddie couldn’t see it though and there’s no convincing her otherwise once her mind’s made.” He rubs at his chin. Jyn catches the black inked band around his middle finger. “I used to think I could help win this fight. Now I just want to outlive it. Simple as that. You do this long enough miss, you get to see there’s no glory in dying and no shame in staying alive.” 

“Where was the last place you were with Saw Guerra?”

Josia shakes his head, “Didn’t hear any of that did you?”

Jyn frowns. “I have to help my father. I can’t do that alone.”

Josia throws up his hands. “Fine. I cut my losses on Cenn Mor but Saw’s not likely to still be there. He doesn’t stay put long. It isn’t safe.” _Cenn Mor_ , Jyn recites the name over and over inside her head.

“That was nearly a year ago, mind. I can’t say that he’d even be in the same star system now. The whole lot might be across the galaxy if they haven’t blown themselves up.”

Jyn licks her lips, dry and rough as they are. “I have to go.” 

Josia shoos her away. “Go then. But don’t say I didn’t tell you better.”

Jyn’s half-turned when Josia speaks again. “Miss, really. You interested in better than this go up three levels to the worker docks, ask for Janeel. She’s a one-armed Twi’lek, bright green, hard to miss her. She runs her own ship, keeps a tidy crew. Last I heard she was looking for someone to fill a vacancy.” He lifts a single eye-brow. “She could use someone familiar with liberating goods from their previous owners.”

“I’m not a thief.” Jyn answers defensively.

Josia flaps his hand. “No you’re a solider. Or at least you were. Which means you’ve got the right skillsets and a nobility complex. You’ll want to do something about that too if you mean to make it out here.”

Jyn scowls. “Thanks for the tip, but I think I’ll pass.”

-

Her bravado lasts her as long as it takes her to trek back up the cellar tunnel. The same barkeep levers it up when she bangs on the underside of the floor panel locking her in and then she’s back in the sweltering mess of the Blue Shingle. Jyn elbows her way through the crowd with even less care than before, wants nothing more than to break free of the place and the people and the smell of it all, rotting and trapped. 

There’s little relief to be had outside, the street narrow, dark, crowded with foot traffic—miners and drunks and whatever passes for merchants on this rock—and Jyn doesn’t know which way to go. She pushes her way into the tide of bodies, slips out of it and ducks into the nearest alley opening she sees. There’s a single pale bulb strung over heard between the walls of two narrow buildings, it casts just enough light to make shadows, and Jyn tips her head back against the grimy wall, fixes her eyes on the bright spot as though it were the sun. She takes a deep breath.

Dantooine is a galaxy away—the Rebellion, Makkal, Cassian—and Papa is who knows where. She scoured every single star map on file but couldn’t find a single mention of Kamino anywhere on record. No hint of where to go.

(She should have asked K-2, she realizes with a pang of cold regret, she should have thought to ask K-2SO that day she saw in him in the corridor. She hadn’t thought—why hadn’t she thought—)

Svel will have already left Nevis space port, even Jyn went back the way she came there’s no knowing when the next Rebel pilot might be making a trip there. That’s not even an option though, Jyn knows that much, beyond the shadow of a doubt. There’s no going back to the Rebellion. That way is shut. She isn’t a soldier anymore. Jyn’s been severing her ties since before she set foot on Svel’s ship, she’s been slicing through each and every tether binding her to the Rebel Alliance and all the rest were undone for her. (She exhales and does not think, does not think, does not think of Cassian, puts every part of him away, buries it in the deepest darkest parts of her, quieter than the silent room where Krennic held her, lonelier the hatch dug into the black Lah’mu stone.) 

There’s no where to go but forward. 

But what does that look like, Jyn doesn’t know. 

She’d thought—she’d hoped—that Josia might be able to help her find Saw Guerra. It had been a wild daydream, she knows that, knew it even when the idea first occurred to her, even as she uttered the words to Makkal. She’d thought, if she could only find Saw, if she could explain the situation, that Mama was dead and Papa was captured, that Saw owed them a debt, maybe, for not coming quickly enough that day on Lah’mu. Jyn had dreamt in the childish part of her mind that had entertained the fantasy of leaving the Rebellion with someone at her side, that she would be able to save her father. 

But he’s as lost to her now as he was before, as lost as he was when only a durasteel door to separate them. 

(“Everything I do, I do it to protect you. Say you understand.”)

Her memories of Eadu are clouded over, the fogbank that hangs over them dense and cold. She keeps trying to piece together that last night, but there’s only fragments, flashes of fire, rumbling explosions. Papa lying on the rain-slick platform. K-2 carrying her away. Is that what Kamino will look like after the Rebellion has done its work? Fire and smoke, more bodies. _Papa._

Buros had said something to her once, it comes to her almost as a whisper, almost forgotten. “The Empire can afford its cruelty, Erso, it has the numbers for it. Unfortunately, by the same merit, some would argue that the Rebellion cannot afford spare acts of kindness. We’re too few.” Had Buros believed that? Jyn doesn’t know. Whatever they’d been talking about was so very long ago. 

Jyn touches her fingertips to her mother’s kyber crystal. It feels cold, nothing more than a lump of stone against her skin.

She has to move. 

She has to keep moving. 

Jyn pushes herself off the wall, slips back into the current of people. It’s a long climb up to the worker’s docks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a mostly transitional chapter and we're now heading into a time jump ;-)
> 
> I don't want to say this in any official capacity but I think there's maybe six chapters, definitely no more than ten according to the outline I've got sketched out. 
> 
> We're in the home stretch friends!


	19. Chapter 19

The first year is the hardest.

Jyn stays with Janeel’s crew just long enough to add more credits to her purse and put together a new plan. Five months later she’s stepping off a transport onto Cenn Mor. The world is an island surrounded by open waters, a single mountainous mass covered in grey grass and yellow-green peat. The people live in stone huts, their basic spoken as thickly as the melodic native tongue they slip into as easily as their fishermen dive into the water after stray nets. 

Jyn walks from village to village for weeks, trudges through hillsides and down ravines, asks in all the subtle ways she’s been taught how after the shadow of Saw Guerra. There’s nothing to find, like Josia Makkal warned. Knowing it was near impossible does nothing to lessen Jyn’s disappointment. 

Jyn trades work for passage off world, makes repairs aboard a ship held together by little more than spit and electrical tape, and leaves the damp sullen world of Cenn Mor behind her. 

It goes like that for months, chasing shadows and the thought of Saw Guerra, her father, trying and failing to gain ground. Jyn feels as though she travels from one of the galaxy to the other, trying to sidestep stormtroopers and rebels alike, and never quiet knowing where she stands. 

That first year is the hardest because she cannot, despite all her best efforts, stop the flickering flame of hope burning in her chest that maybe, just maybe, she’ll find what she’s looking for.

She picks up odd jobs, jumps transports and once—only once—stows away on a freighter. She gets found out and nearly spaced until she takes down the Togruta who tries to grab her. 

Jyn winds up with a bloody nose, swollen knuckles and a place on the crew. Captain G.K. Holms is a mess of a man, but he likes how Jyn fights. After the disappointment of Cenn Mor and half a dozen other worlds like it, of Josia, of Saw Guerra (of the Rebellion, of Cassian) Jyn has more than enough fight inside her. 

Holms mostly puts her on lookout duty, and Jyn doesn’t let herself think overmuch about the things the rest of the crew gets up while she’s keeping watch, outside nondescript buildings or on the boarding ramp of other ships. She swings when she has to, kicks and ducks and helps them all escape to the next job, the next bounty fall. Holms seems to deal almost entirely in stealing from other thieves and Jyn has no moral dilemma there. 

No one on Holms crew asks Jyn where she’s come from. And certainly no one cares when she decides its time to go. Holms half-heartedly tempts her with talk of bigger shares of every job but Jyn trusts as much as she would a sleeping sarlacc at her back. She leaves. 

The days turn to weeks turn to months until a year has slipped by and Jyn can’t stop the feeling that it’s a long year wasted. 

She feels each day like another step further, further from Dantooine, from Lah’mu. From Makkal and Mama and Stardust, without ever moving any close to anything else. She’s stuck in place, feet caught in the mud of her indirection, Saw Guerra and Papa ever out of Jyn’s reach. 

Jyn wonders if, when, she’ll stop reaching. 

-

At Kafrene she hangs around the teeming bars not far from the docks, keeps her ear to the ground for any hint of where to go next. More and more often these days Jyn finds herself thinking of Min, wondering if she felt this tired, this rudderless, during her final days with the Rebellion. If she felt her constant work was without point and if it was the hopeless exhaustion of futility that convinced her it was time to go. (Jyn has nowhere to go. She feels it as weightily as the pack she keeps on her back always, her entire life stowed away within its compartments. She has nowhere to go and can go anywhere. The endless possibilities suffocate her.) 

Smugglers and merchants and mercenaries all gather at watering holes like the Dancing Damsel, with this luminescent holo of a dancing alien-female glowing florescent in the front window. Jyn listens in to locals complaining about Imperial trading tariffs and ever-increasing taxes on goods while less reputable individuals trade information about deep space checkpoints. “It’s those rebels,” a scrawny Selonian grumbles at the table next to Jyn’s. “They keep making a mess, getting the Emperor all hot under the collar. Just makes it hard on the working folks. Now we’ve got to get all inventive to keep making our living.”

Jyn downs the rest of her drink—fermented plumberry juice, sticky sweet and almost tolerable—and does her best not to look to hard at her neighbors. 

The trick is to remain invisible. That’s always been the trick, the one Mama taught her on Coruscant when Papa had company over, the one her parents wanted her to perfect on Lah’mu when they trusted the dark earth to keep Jyn hidden. How badly had Papa wanted Jyn to be invisible on Eadu? Every single day, as though that would make Krennic forget Jyn was there at all. Or maybe it was Papa who wanted to forget, as though being a prisoner would be easier to tolerate if Jyn weren’t there with him.

“Don’t make a scene.” Makkal ordered when she draped the scarf over Jyn’s shoulders, “Keep your head down Erso. That’s all anyone does out there. Keep their heads down and try to make it another day.” She spoke with a certainty that Jyn used to wonder at, though all the pieces fell into place when Josia spoke in the cellar of the Blue Shingle. 

“They keep pushing, we keep moving further out. Pretty soon we’re gonna have nowhere to go but uncharted regions.”

“Heard Ruso’s gone over to Jehda.” The Salonian’s tablemate says gruffly. “Says its all sticks and stones now that the Empire’s done with it, no one looking too close if you’re interested at moving things.”

“Jedha.” The Salonian very nearly spits, he makes a hissing sound that must mean something since it sets his table companions laughing. “Haakon tried to sell me a load of kyber crystals once. Just a ton of stupid rocks. Had to put a hole in him to teach him his lesson.” The table laughs again, slap their drinks on the table. No one in the Dancing Damsel pays them any heed. 

No one ever does in places like this.

-

When Jyn was a girl, soft as the insides of a nuna egg, Mama had told her that she’d found her piece of kyber in a cave while she was on assignment. “It was on Vallt. Your father and I were there, doing research and I was exploring a cave. It wasn’t one of the caves we had clearance to study,” Mama told her somewhat guiltily, “but I was curious. Those caves were beautiful Jyn, I wish you could remember them.” Mama pulled the chord from beneath the collar of her dress, let Jyn toy with the crystal that hung from it. “It broke off the wall of the cave when I touched it, almost as though it were waiting for me. I took it back to our lab but I couldn’t bring myself to turn it over for our studies. I felt like, like it was something special, something that cave had given me and I couldn’t just give it away to be broken apart and examined under a microscope.” 

Jyn wrapped her tiny hand around the stone, skin shivering at the feel of it. It was always so much warmer than any other stone Jyn touched. “Can you feel it Jyn?” Mama whispered, holding Jyn close (the rest of the memory is stark, sparkling glass and gleaming steelwork and the blinding lights of a cityscape peering back from the horizon. Their pristine prison). “Even here, it’s there. The Force. They can’t stop it or keep it out. It’s always there. In everything and all of us. We just have to trust it.” And Jyn had been too small to know what it meant to trust the Force, but she knew enough to know what it was to trust Mama, to believe her. 

It’s that trust that’s kept that piece of kyber around Jyn’s neck for years and years, that makes her worry it and pray—to the Force, to Mama—for bravery and strength and the ability to do what she needs to do. 

But it’s nothing more than sentiment that carries Jyn from the Dancing Damsel to the transport docks and it’s nothing but the foolish nostalgia of a girl that pushes her through the crowd of porters looking for a ship that can take her where she wants to go. 

She’s been invisible for so long now, has been invisible her whole life, who’s to say the Force knows she’s even here anymore.

“I’m looking for passage to Jedha.” Jyn says bluntly, for what feels like the hundredth time within the hour. This particular barker looks painfully bored, spits on the ground near his scuffed boot. Jyn just about walks away when he rumbles an answer. “Kal, we’ve got another pilgrim.” He calls over his shoulder before extending a long-fingered hand towards Jyn for payment. 

“Provisions not included.” He tells Jyn blandly. “Watch your step. Mind your business.”

-

Jedha is a skeleton. It’s streets are crowded but it’s people seem desolate, uneasy. The buildings that line the avenues look dark, ominous, half-ruins slumping closer to their final demise. Jyn thinks she catches glimpses here and there of what it might have been before, back when the name Holy City must have been more of an honor and less like an epitaph. 

Mama might have liked it then, Jyn thinks, if she had come here before this war clawed through the city. Her mother was no Jedi but she believed nonetheless, would have been more at home among the pilgrims flocking to Jedha for worship and reflection than in any research lab.

It doesn’t matter now of course, none of it matters. The Temple of the Kyber that a local woman directed her towards is nothing more than a hollow shell now. Whatever it once held has been stripped, it’s interior desecrated, the Imperial insignia painted on its doors as a mark of condemnation. Pilgrims still come, just like Jyn, mill around in the square outside, but Jyn, standing in its waning shadow, feels the strength go out of her bones. Her legs fold beneath her and she sits on the stoop of a nearby building. She looks on the former temple site with misdirected resentment. She knows that the building is not to blame for what has happened. Yet the site of it feels like the most vicious kind of reminder of all the things Jyn cannot change.

Mama is gone, she disappeared into the grass on Lah’mu and never rose again. Krennic took her body and locked it away in a crypt on Coruscant and she’ll come here, never see the leftover bones of the Holy City for herself. 

Jyn kicks at a patch of stone under her boot. This city isn’t to blame for what happened to it.

There’s only one culprit. The Empire wasn’t satisfied with destroying the galaxy, with killing mothers and stealing fathers, with locking children away, alone. It couldn’t rest with destroying the Jedi, it had to stamp out all their beliefs too, grind everything that once gave people hope for a kinder world to dust.

Jyn pressed her fingers to the stone tucked away beneath her tunic. She misses Makkal, wishes there were someone to talk to, someone to listen to her as she tries to figure out where to go next. What to do next. Someone to tell about the exhausting weight of disappointment, a tether to grab hold of now that she’s cast herself adrift

Loneliness hangs heavy on her shoulders and she misses so much of what she once had. Not just Mama, not just Makkal. She misses Buros, misses Tomo and Vobal. She misses K-2 and Force help her, she misses Cassian.

It sneaks up on her like a silent wave, washes over her and drags her under. She hates it, the veracity of it, how it would be easier if she could blame him for everything. Not just for what he did—for lying and leading her to believe, to hope, to think—or what he didn’t do—he didn’t pick her. It wouldn’t have solved everything but it would have lessened the blow, if he could have just picked her at that final moment, if he could have helped her find Papa and not told Draven, if he hadn’t decided her father’s death was an acceptable price to pay—but for what he cost her. 

Her family. In so many ways beyond Papa. (“You’re the only family I have left.” He said and she wonders now how he could mean it, if he meant it at all, and knows in her heart that she did. That she meant it even if she never said the words aloud.)

_But you were going to leave anyhow_ , comes a traitorous voice from deep in Jyn’s mind, _you were never going to stay_.

It would be easier to blame him for everything if that weren’t true. 

(What ifs spin themselves into a net, into a noose, in Jyn’s head and she can’t give into any of them, can’t lean forward else she lose her footing and dive head first into its hold. It doesn’t matter, she reminds herself, it never mattered. If Cassian had made a different choice, if Jyn had made a different plan, it never would have mattered. Because he lied to her. Three years and nothing between them was true so long as that first lie was there. There’s no balancing the scales because the one truth Jyn needed to know about him, about the rebels, was the truth Cassian Andor chose to withhold from her from the moment they met. And she can hate him for that, will hate him for that, for the rest of her life.)

Jyn’s pulled from her thoughts by a sudden commotion up ahead. The pilgrims and locals alike have stopped in their paths, their attention turned not towards the ruins of the temple but something, someone standing on the steps outside the temple. 

Jyn doesn’t stand, still careful, caution keeping her still when standing might draw unwanted attention her way. Not that there seems to be any chance of that the moment it becomes clear what is going on outside the temple doors. 

There’s a voice rising over the murmuring of the onlookers, calling louder and louder until at last Jyn can make out its message. “Join me, brothers and sisters, the time has come. The Empire must be stopped, the Force wills it. It is time to take our stand.” Jyn does scramble to her feet then, standing on the top set of the stoop to try and catch a glimpse over the crowd. She can make out a reptilian head, flashing eyes, a single arm held aloft with a staff clutched in its fist. “The Force is with me. I wield it like the Jedi knights of old.” The murmuring of the crowd increases, turns to a startled buzz.

Jyn doesn’t know whether to lean further into the square or sink into the shadow of the doorway. A Jedi, or just a man claiming to be one, is a dangerous affair. There are stormtroopers aplenty on Jedha, lazy and bored though they might be from what Jyn’s seen. They’ll come here if this man continues, they’ll raise their weapons against any calling for open war on the Emperor. 

There are others present who know the risk, probably better than Jyn herself, people who step out of the crowd and beg the man to silence himself. Jyn watches from the sidelines, curiosity and dread twisting into a single thread knotting up the length of her spine. She waits for the flare of a saber, the ancient weapons Papa described to her, the chosen tool of the Jedi of the Old Republic. He told her that they took their power from kyber crystals, that the stones were capable of generating incredible energy.

(The Force, Mama said. Power, Papa told her.) 

Whoever the man standing in front of the temple is he does not produce a lightsaber, though he calls himself a Jedi, though he calls pilgrim and bystander alike to arms. Jyn scans the crowd, the people uneasy, restless, scared. 

Their fear sinks into Jyn and she knows she should go, find better cover before the Imperials stationed nearby get word of this.

She steps down from the stoop, tries to find the best path to skirt the edges of the crowd. 

“Guardian!” Comes the voice, closer now that Jyn is wading through its audience rather than simply watching from afar. “Stand with me. We will make the Imperials pay.” 

That is when she first sees them. In fact, she misses one of them entirely, eyes caught on the larger of the two, his body eclipsing that of the man stepping forward towards the would-be rebel. Yet once Jyn’s eyes slip past the hulking man she catches sight of the second man, the one their instigator addressed as a guardian.

His steps are short, careful, preluded by the length of his staff that taps against the ground as he approaches. A guide, Jyn realizes, more than a crutch. But there's something beneath the brevity of his stride, a surety, a sense of calm that feels so at odds with the frenzied buzz to the air. 

When newcomer speaks there's none of the fear she heard in the voices of others begging the man in the square to be quiet. He extends his hand to the man, voice concerned. Jyn recognizes the intention in the gesture. He means to pacify him, silence him.

But it isn’t silence he brings at all, he asks the man his name—Wernad, the faux Jedi answers—asks Wernad what brings him here. Wernad answers. He speaks of vengeance, of anger, of loss. (All of them sing the same funeral dirge these days.) Wernad speaks of mines, about his clutchmates, all of them lost under the Empire’s cruelty. 

What follows feels like a scene out of holodrama. The newcomer invites Wernad to sit, lowers himself onto the pale dirt-strewn stones of the square, his dark robes folding under him, his staff resting over his knees. One by one others follow suit, onlookers, pilgrims, some dressed like the sitting man—a sect perhaps, Jyn wonders, trying to piece together everything she can of what is taking place in front of her—even the great mass of the man who had stood with his back to Jyn lowers himself to the ground, though somewhat reluctantly. Jyn notices he doesn’t relinquish his hold of the poorly concealed blaster he has on him. 

Movement returns to the square, people who had previously been stalled by the spectacle taking place released, regaining motion, carried away from the shadows of the temple. And still others sit, the man who invited Wernad to sit still waiting patiently for Wernad himself to join him.

“I have to do something,” Wernad protests weakly. Jyn can see him more clearly now, can see the deep pale scar that cut across his muzzle. He looks lost, standing amid those sitting, clutching his own staff nervously. 

Jyn almost misses the man’s answer, feet carrying her away, seeking out a path that will lead to less troublesome quarters. (She pictures herself stepping forward, taking Wernad’s side as he called others to make a stand against the Empire. She could have done it. She’s done it before. Maybe victory isn’t a possibility, but vengeance might be. A life for every life lost. But she hadn’t. Jyn kept still and watched and listened and now, now she runs, runs elsewhere lest she be implicated.)

“We are doing something,” comes the man’s answer at Jyn’s back before she slips into an alleyway, “We are keeping faith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized a while back where I wanted Jyn to go after leaving the Rebellion and once I did I knew I’d be borrowing heavily from Greg Rucka’s seminal novel Guardians of the Whills. If you love Baze and Chirrut stop whatever you’re doing and go read it. It is marvelous. That being said, the last scene with Wernad and Chirrut takes place in the first chapter of that very book, here retold from Jyn’s point of view. I take no credit for Chirrut’s final line, that’s all Rucka.


	20. Chapter 20

Jyn does not make a conscious choice to linger in NiJedha, but the desert landscapes are vast and the sky is endless in the night, stars glittering overhead by the thousand and everywhere is the echo of something Jyn can’t name but recognizes in her bones. 

People come and go, pilgrims and merchants and traders, the ports full of ships willing to carry away any passenger with the right amount of credits, and maybe it’s that, the possibility of easy escape, that allows Jyn to stay. 

She wants to stay. The kyber crystal against her breastbone seems to blaze to life, warm and almost vibrating against her skin. 

At night her dreams are full of blinding lights and fire, but Jyn isn’t afraid when she finally wakes. 

-

Winters on Jedha are cold. Jyn hadn’t expected that. She wears the scarf Makkal gave her up over her ears, her hair tucked against the nape of her neck to warm it, jacket shrugged close. Her over-large fatigues were near threadbare when she first acquired them on Dantooine, a year and a half on her own have rendered them especially ragged. Jyn does her best to keep clean, but there’s only so many patches she has improvise, so many holes she can mend. Her jacket at least has held up, but the wind blows hard and seems to cut through the canvas of her trousers, slices through her knees. 

She pushes her way through the crowds in the marketplace—vendors selling caf and fry bread and skewered meats, loose cables and scrap metal, anything and everything seems to be on display—and can at least appreciate the warmth the crowd provides.

There’s a part of Jyn that wishes she could linger, take her time to better study some of the vendors and their goods, but Denic doesn’t forgive tardiness. 

Of course Denic is already there when Jyn finally arrives. Jyn can hear her faintly through the thin walls of the garage, her muffled voice rising and falling in conversation. Jyn looks around, steals a glance back at the still-empty street outside the garage doors. It’s early still for customers, even by NiJedhan hours, but it isn’t her business to pry. Jyn busies herself shucking her jacket and scarf before hopping into the grease-stained canvas overalls Denic gave her when she first took Jyn on. Jyn wraps her hair out of the way with a spare piece of coarse cloth and dons her goggles, ducking under a nearby speeder to begin her work. She learned enough hanging around hangars and watching pilots and mechanics alike, her hands know their way around the guts of a machine and what she doesn’t know her brain has sense enough to figure out. It’s a handy skill to have. 

Meeting Denic was a stroke of luck Jyn never thought to look for but is more than happy to have found. It was in the Old Market nearly a week into Jyn’s stay on Jedha. Jyn had been bartering with a merchant who was trying to sell her a blaster part for twice the price it was worth. 

“Florince would fleece his mother if she wasn’t already dead.” Denic had interjected when the Rodian had refused to budge on his price, sparking greater outrage from the merchant. 

“You could sell that bit for scrap and get enough coin to pick up a new blaster y’know.” Denic had said to her once Jyn had walked away, new part acquired and purse stinging from the hit. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it was still a bit more than Jyn had been hoping to part with. 

“Not interested in selling.” Jyn had answered, a touch more defensive than the conversation actually warranted but careful all the same.

Denic had laughed. “And I’m not buying. Just that most people don’t want to bother with the trouble.”

It had been a convoluted path towards here, helping Denic with the occasional odd job until she’d finally asked Jyn if she was interested in taking on something more permanent. “I can’t pay you much, but there’s no shortage of work which is more than most can say these days.” It wasn’t the best offer Jyn had heard but Denic had a straightforwardness to her Jyn liked, a blunt-edged tongue and direct approach to every situation that reminded Jyn of Makkal even if she lacked Makkal’s solemnity. She wasn’t a native to Jedha, Jyn had been able to gather that much from what she heard of the woman from the other boarders staying at the boarding house where Jyn rented a bed. There was even talk that she’d been a smuggler once. Curiosity has never gotten Jyn anywhere she wants to be, so she does her best to do her job and keep her head down, eager to get by. 

She’s trying to pry a rusted bolt loose when she hears footsteps approaching. She peers sideways and recognizes Denic’s battered boots. Less familiar are the dusty boots and pale brown canvas covered legs standing next to her. “Tonight then.” Says a gruff voice, and their feet shift, move further away. 

“Don’t be late.” Comes Denic’s voice in reply and then the footsteps retreat, soften. When they return it’s only Denic’s feet that come into view. 

“Dawn.” She says, dropping into a crouch by Jyn’s knees. “How’s it looking down there?”

Even now after all this time it still throws her off balance to answer to another name. There’s a part of her that recoils each and every time, a part of her that thinks of Mama and Papa and wants to be Jyn again. Just Jyn. Not Krestel Dawn. Not Sergeant Erso. 

Jyn. (“Stardust.”)

Jyn grunts, huffing through her nose when the bolt finally gives a little. Her palm aches, the wrench bites into her hand from the force of her grip. She drops the tool to the grimy floor with a clank. “Whoever abandoned this heap had the right idea.” She says, sliding out from beneath the metal bulk of the speeder. “I’m gonna need a torch to get into it. Let’s hope whatever’s inside is worth the trouble.” Denic’s garage seems to operate at least partly as a chop shop of sorts, with merchants like Florince coming to her to buy the spare bits and pieces they sell at exorbitant prices at market. 

Denic snorts, slaps the flat of her hand against the rear of the speeder. Her red hair looks the same color as the mud-stone that ancient priesthoods used to build their temples, braided tightly away from her spotted face.

“I knew I hired you for a reason, Dawn.” She says, grin flickering over her features. 

-

Jedha is not quiet, but somehow, against all odds, Jyn’s life there is. 

She wakes in the morning in her rented bed, washes her face in the communal ‘fresher used by all other boarders on the floor, walks the ancient streets of NiJedha and spends her days in the grease and steel-scent confines of Denic’s garage. Nights come late on Jedha, the sunset taking hours, twilight stretching out for so long that most nights Jyn walks home with the sky still burning a soft lavender-grey.

She works and she eats and she sleeps, answers to the name Krestal Dawn without hesitation. She tells herself there’s no shame in this, in living and surviving, in looking out for herself before anyone else. 

It’s what Makkal asked of her before she watched Jyn board a ship and what Papa had sworn he worked to ensure with his every action. Jyn didn’t owe her life to the Rebellion’s war anymore than she owed it to the Empire. She’ll live it however she wants wherever she wants to and for now it’s on Jedha, for now it’s like this. Mama had raised that blaster to save their lives and she fell, disappeared into the green grass on Lah’mu and Jyn owes her this, owes her a long life even if it isn’t a perfect one.

-

Some nights Jyn dreams of Cassian. She dreams of him as he was and dreams of him as she wishes he might have been. Jyn sees him again, in stolen moments, in fragments, in fantasies.

In her dreams Jyn rewrites the past and imagines impossible futures, comes awake with a deep, pitiful ache in the pit of her stomach. 

It’s only in those sweat-salt tinged moments while her heart calms behind her breastbone that Jyn allows herself to think about him, to wonder—

She tries not to. Wondering and worrying are both sides of the same coin, exercises in futility. Jyn’s always known that, a lesson hard learned inside the confines of a room on Eadu, one committed to heart aboard a U-wing on Dantooine when all her visions of the future fell apart in her hands. 

But it happens all the same, the creeping fog of worry that settles in thick when she’s weakest. The questions that roll through her mind before Jyn can push them away. 

She blinks in the darkness of her shared room and wonders if he did it, if he finished his mission and told Draven everything there was to tell about what he saw on Kamino. He must have, Jyn knows that, knows—knew him. Her stomach twists and she closes her eyes, sees Papa lying on the platform that storm-torn night, pictures Cassian, the shadows on his face the day he finally told her the truth. 

Anger leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, it burns her throat, sours her stomach, and she wonders if she shouldn’t have done more, if she shouldn’t have—if she could have—pulled the blaster from his holster and opened fire. 

But the thought only pulls more questions out from beneath the tightly latched door Jyn’s kept closed since the day she boarded Svel’s ship. She’d pictured it a hundred, a thousand, a million times. Every time Cassian left without saying goodbye, every time he walked away from her with only K-2SO to accompany him, every time he asked her to be careful. 

_Are you alive?_ Jyn wonders, reaching for Mama’s kyber crystal. Anger turns to ash on her tongue. Jyn hates him, the lies, the half-truths, the choices he made and the ones he didn’t. 

And still—

(“You’re the only family I have left.”)

The thought of him dead freezes something in her. Jyn curls her fingers around the unyielding rock face and breathes deep, tries to thaw the dread out from inside her chest.

-

Choosing to abstain from the Rebellion’s war doesn’t means she can ignore it all together. Jedha is a city in ruins but its heart still lives, still pulses hot beneath the cracked and crumbling surface of the city. There are pockets of resistance all around Jyn, civilians who refuse to bend to the Empire’s will even if their home has been invaded, destroyed. 

She sees it every day, in the people who put alms in the empty dishes of beggars, in those who open their doors to their neighbors who have lost everything, in the self-assigned guardians who see to the pilgrims who still flock to closed temple doors. You don’t need a blaster to help, Cassian had said once, but she doubts he ever pictured anything quite like this, the everyday survival of people as an act of resistance. 

Of course, there are other types of resistance on Jedha, and Jyn hears about those too. “Seems like someone got at the supply cache over by the southwestern messa.” One boarder tells another as they strip off their dusty clothes in preparation for sleep. It’s early still and Jyn still has time to sleep before her chrono tells her its time to get ready for work, but she’ll always be a light sleeper, years of sharing a barrack weren’t enough to rob her of the trait. People come and go at their own hours on Jedha, the newest boarders in this shared room acquaintances who keep a late schedule. They make good news sources at the very least, though Jyn thinks she’s close to telling them to come in more quietly when they do. “Troopers are all hot about it, even if they aren’t saying. Heard it from Old Tomem himself when he came by. That’s the third one this season.” Their acquaintance grunts, kicking off their boots. “Be nice if whoever was doing it would share the bounty. Keep this up and the Troopers will have to report it to someone higher up. Just make more trouble for the rest of us and we’re not even getting anything out of it. Where’s the justice in that?”

The first boarder makes a clucking sound, the springs of their ancient bed creaking when they finally move to lie down. “Oh, none of this has ever been about justice.” 

-

Jyn finds the boxes under a tarp, set far back in the garage. Denic had asked her to help her move some rubbish but it becomes quickly apparent that whatever it is under the tarp is far from rubbish. 

The boxes are dinged, slightly scorched on one side, and covered in the fine film of sand that seems to settle over everything on Jedha. Otherwise the boxes remain firmly intact, dark durasteel plated exteriors the color of K-2SO and just as similarly marked with an imperial insignia peeking out at Jyn from under the ragged tarp. A dozen thoughts spring into Jyn’s mind but they scatter like a flock of birds startled into flight at the sound of fast approaching footsteps. 

“Dawn!” Denic calls and there’s only a second between Jyn hearing the sound of her voice and Denic appearing in front of her. The tarp is still settling back into stillness even as they stare at one another.

“I need you over there.” Denic says shortly, jerking her thumb over her shoulder towards a pile of mismatched cargo containers. Jyn nods hastily, recalls years of training, of hiding, of playing a part. She keeps her eyes wide, startled, her brow creased with confusion. Denic needs to know Jyn’s no threat. Whatever is in those boxes is no business of Jyn’s, she knows that, knew that before she lifted the tarp. 

Denic doesn’t say anything and Jyn holds her breath, hopes against hope and reason that Denic will let her go but she doesn’t manage more than a step when Denic stops her with a hand on her arm. “Let that be the last time I catch you rifling where you don’t belong.”

Jyn snaps her mouth shut, teeth clicking hard against one another as she grits them closed. Yes ma’am springs to the tip of her tongue as habitual as breathing. The words get lodged in her throat. “I’m sorry.” Jyn chokes out, trying to inject as much fear and regret into the words as she can. “I didn’t see anything, I promise.”

Denic gives her a hard look, color rising in her pale face, flushing her the same color as the spots that cover her cheeks. Jyn glances at the entrance of the garage, at the tools strewn around and within reach. She feels the weight of the blade in her boot, pressed secure against her ankle. She could extract herself from Denic’s grasp easily enough, make a break for the door, she wouldn’t even need to really hurt her to do it. 

Denic’s hand drops away, her shoulders rise in frustration. “I didn’t exactly peg you as a law abiding citizen Krestel.” 

The comment catches Jyn off guard. Denic looks especially annoyed. “This isn’t going to be problem, is it?” Denic huffs, knuckles braced against her hips. “Because you’re good to have around, but if this is going to be an issue—”

“It’s not a problem.” Jyn blurts out, “I don’t—" Jyn tugs on her sleeve. “It isn’t my business.”

Denic’s eyes chisel at Jyn’s face, “You’re right about that. And remember, if you’re even thinking of turning me in, that there’s no way anyone would believe you weren’t a part of it—”

Jyn recoils, hip catching on the corner of a box. The words sting worse than the impact. “Never.” There’s no hesitation, no room for doubt in that single word. “I wouldn’t do that to you.” Jyn means it with every fiber of her being, the strength of her conviction shivering in the marrow of her bones. 

Something softens in Denic’s face, even if it doesn’t entirely disappear. “Go. That crap isn’t going to clear itself out.” 

-

The boxes keep appearing without any discernable pattern or schedule. Jyn doesn’t know how she ever missed them before. Sloppy work on her part, a slip in vigilance she can’t easily forgive. 

But now that she knows she’s better able to connect the rumors of attacks on Imperial installation across the city and along the outskirts of NiJedha, hushed and hurried as they spread throughout the Old Market or whispered in crowded rooms. 

They change in quantity and condition, battered and busted more often than not, obviously extracted by force, but they appear nonetheless. Denic never asks for Jyn’s help with them and they both pretend as though neither of them knows of their existence, like a spotted bantha in the corner of the garage. 

Jyn worries sometimes that whatever Denic is doing, whoever she’s doing it with, will come back to bite her, that Jyn will get caught in the fallout. Denic was right when she told Jyn that no interested party would believe Jyn innocent if Denic were caught. If she were caught, how long would Jyn have before someone figured out the truth. She did her best work on the scan docs identifying her as Krestel Dawn but even her best work wouldn’t hold up indefinitely against an Imperial database containing any identifying markers for Jyn Erso. What would happen to her once the troopers figured out who they had, who would be notified? 

Jyn shivers to think that Krennic would be told, that he would seek her out or ordered her killed on the spot. He never was a man who liked to be reminded of his failings. 

-

There are children playing down the street from the garage, their high-pitched laughter echoes off the stone buildings. Jyn spies them when she sits outside with her midday meal, chasing each other seemingly at random, screaming at each other in a rapid-fire blur of basic and a language Jyn doesn’t understand. She counts seven children total, including a Rodian and a Zeltron, her skin the same deep red as a ripened plum. Whatever they’re doing they seem to be enjoying themselves, breaking into a giggling off-rhythm song as they run in a circle around a shaggy haired boy who spins aimlessly in the middle. When the song stops they scatter and the boy takes after them. 

Jyn takes her eyes off them, sides her eyes down to the opposite end of the street. Jyn can see the crooked streets unfolding onto themselves, clotheslines strung between parallel buildings and the flat squared rooftops of the mismatched buildings. 

There’s a sharp siren’s wail behind her and Jyn’s spine goes rigid, her head whips back in its direction. 

“Fafruq! Fafruq!” the Zeltron calls out and the children scatter, press themselves against the walls of the buildings as an hover tank cuts through the street. Jyn stands, watching its trajectory, watching the children, jogs towards them even as a cloud of dust engulfs them in the wake of the tank.

“Adhab!” comes a voice, an echo in the dust and one by one the children emerge. Jyn barely recognizes the Zeltron when she comes into sight, her brilliant red skin covered in grey-brown Jedhan dust. 

The shaggy haired boy spits in the direction of the disappearing tank, but the Rodian is already collecting the other children back into another circle. The Zeltron girl looks Jyn’s way, stares at her with the unapologetic directness that seems to go hand in hand with childhood. She waves and Jyn doesn’t know what to do, can feel herself growing flustered, thrown off balance by the simple gesture. 

“Oki, come!” One of the other children calls and the girl turns away, Jyn forgotten in favor of picking up their interrupted game. Their laughter follows soon after.

Jyn never had this growing up, no company or friends, but she had Mama and Papa, she had Stormie and Tinta and all the other toys her parents made her. She remembers what it was like to play and forget, for just a while at a time, all the things that were out of her hands. 

Jyn might envy them, but above all else, she wishes the world were a better place for them. A kinder place. 

-

Jyn thinks about leaving, in those first few days after finding Denic’s secret, packing her things and heading towards the ship docks. It wouldn’t be hard to slip away. She has enough credits to buy her way aboard a ship, it wouldn’t matter which ship, just so long as it could take her away from Jedha and this war that seems determined to keep Jyn within its fold.

But the winter is slowing thawing into a mild Spring and the thought of leaving makes Jyn’s bones feel heavy with remorse. She imagines how the Old Market will look in the summer, wonders if the chill in the air will vanish or if it will linger throughout the season. She thinks of the wide expanse of sky overhead and the endless starlight and the dawn rising silver and gold over the mountaintops on the eastern horizon. The cold dark of space feels like a trap in comparison. 

Jyn is tired of running. Jedha is the first place since Dantooine where Jyn has kept still long enough to realize it. 

She stays. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M ALIVE AND SO IS THIS FIC
> 
> gosh, this chapter kicked me in the teeth every step of the way--and work sucked my soul out of my body dementor style--but it's written now and i am okay with it.
> 
> The next chapter is mostly outlined and then the ball really gets rolling into the third, and final, act!
> 
> Thank you guys for hanging in there with me! You're all treasures!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split this chapter in half. The next part will definitely be up soon. Thank you to anyone who is still keeping up with this fic. I'm thinking of this segment of the story like the Long Endless Camping Trip of Angst in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Don't worry though, our boy Cassian isn't far away now. ;-)

Summer on Jedha is hardly summer at all.

The sun stays out for longer stretches of time, so long there hardly seems to be any night at all. The boarding house where Jyn stays employs blackout curtains, but the light still presses in around the seams of the window, a thin boarder of golden-red light that frames the artificial darkness of Jyn's sleep. 

The locals call it their dry season, and Jyn doesn't have to wonder why. Summer brings sandstorms and droughts, the water rationed heavily not by the imperial occupiers but by the locals themselves who have knowns seasons like this before. There's still a chill in the air but the sun is relentless, the cold of Jedha on accompanied by the unrelenting burning. It makes Jyn feel drained, like she's been wrung dry. Jyn’s hands crack, split first with hairline nicks that rip the skin around her knuckles, that turn into near constant scabs, make her skin look constantly dirtied by brown flecks. Jyn's hair turns brittle and there’s a perpetual thirst in her throat no matter how frequently she reaches for her canteen. 

But the children still play their games in the street down the way from the garage, the market still thrums with patrons and vendors, the crates still appear at random in Denic’s garage. Life on Jedha carries on and carries Jyn with it. 

-

Jyn arrives to the garage and the heavy scent of blaster discharge. It makes her hair rise on end, and almost immediately she drops into a crouch, surveys her surrounding for any sign of imminent attack. She ducks behind a half dismantled speeder that’s been on blocks for almost as long as Jyn’s worked for Denic—it seems more a decoration than an actual project to complete—and steadies her heart, her breathing, picks the small near-useless blaster out of her boot and tries to figure out what to do.

They’ve found her, that much must be true, Jyn thinks, they’ve traced the stolen goods back to Denic and come to collect. 

You should have left, Jyn scolds herself silently, but the reproach in the thought is easily overlooked in the wake of the worry that spikes in Jyn’s belly. 

There’s a clatter, a sudden crash of scrap metal near the back of the garage. Jyn tenses, tightens her grip on her blaster—

“Kriffing hell tell me that’s you Dawn.” That’s Denic, sounding more annoyed than worried. “I need a hand back here.”

Jyn freezes. It’s a trap says a voice that sounds like Cassian. Stay down. There’s the sound of scattered metal. “Dawn. I swear if you’re late this morning—” Denic frustrated grunt, pained.

Jyn makes a choice, sticks the blaster in the waistband at the small of her back and then propels herself forward, towards the sound of Denic’s voice. 

Denic is alone at the back of the garage, pale-faced beneath her spots, lips pressed thin with pain. 

“Oh stars, you’re a sight Dawn.” Denic says, sagging against the nearest wall, holding her hands out towards Jyn, palms facing upward. Jyn nearly winces at the sight of Denic’s hands, the skin shiny and blistered over her fingers and palms. 

“You’ll want to steer clear of those things.” Denic huffs, jerking her chin towards the twin crates still lying uncovered in the shadowed corner of the garage. The ionized smell is strongest here, though now that Jyn’s closer there’s too well remembered scent of cauterized flesh. 

“What happened?” Jyn asks, taking Denic by the elbow, gently guiding her back towards the low cabinet that doubles as Denic’s chair in her office. Denic sinks down without complaint, almost as though her knees give out. 

“Dropped the stupid medkit.” Denic says, motioning back towards the spot where Jyn found her. Jyn hurries back, scoops up the forementioned medkit and rushes back to Denic’s side. The latch sticks when she goes to open it and she shudders to think of trying to pry it open with a blistered thumb. 

“Do you need a medic? A real one, I mean.” The latch finally comes free. Jyn never trained with medical other than a very rough and quick overview of the basics Buros thought necessary for all his soldiers. She can apply a batapatch and administer a hypo, but that’s probably the full extent of her medical prowess. 

“No, there should be some batca gel in there.” Denic hisses through her teeth, brow furrowed. “Pretty sure it’s not expired.” 

Jyn snorts under her breath, digs through the apparently random assortment of crap that Denic thought useful in a medkit. Finally her fingers close around a half-empty tube of bacta gel. She’s careful in her application, tries to apply an even layer of gel without causing Denic too much pain. “I’ll bandage these, probably want to be careful for a day or two just to be safe.” Jyn says, picking what looks like the largest roll of gauzy bandage to wrap around Denic’s damaged palms. 

“Got to stash those.” Denic says, ill-tempered, glaring at the crates. “Someone got smart, put a booby trap on it. Didn’t think far enough ahead to put an actual tracker on the thing though.” 

Jyn swallows nervously. “You sure?”

“I’m not an idiot.” Denic says peevishly, “Of course I’m sure. I checked twice. Just when I went to open it—” She holds up her bandaged hands. 

It takes Jyn a moment of careful inspection but she finds the trap, a small, slim panel attached to the exterior of the crate. It definitely isn’t anything manufactured on an assembly line or issued by any higher up as part of some newly regulated measure. Jyn imagines it was put together by a runt annoyed at thieves, probably tired of being chewed out over the loss of material goods. More bent on vengeance than actually catching the culprit. 

She considers it for another second and then makes her decision. There are tools aplenty to pick from in the garage, but the one closest at hand is the blaster at Jyn’s back. She reaches for it and in a quick, unhesitating movement shoots the thing off, turns it to nothing more an a charred array of scraps on the garage floor. Denic hisses out a breath, pressed tight between her teeth. “Got it?” She asks as Jyn stows her blaster away once more—there’s a thrum in her ears, her heart reverberating in her veins, adrenaline quickening the contraction and expansion of her lungs. Jyn doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know what it means, this war song ring out in her bones, the oldest melody Jyn knows—and Jyn nods, elbow locked as she reaches out for the crate. She skims her fingertips over the edge of it, half-expects the blistering heat that must have licked at Denic’s hands when she first touched it, but there’s nothing, just the impression of warmth from the current that must have run through it before. 

“Got it.” Jyn says quickly, stepping back curtly, accidently falling to attention before she remembers that she’s no longer a soldier. Denic is studying her, the same appraising look she fixed Jyn with that day in the Old Market when Jyn refused to back down at Florince booth. 

“I’m useless with these things.” Denic says, eyes not quite losing their focus even though she glances away. “Think you can help me stash this, Dawn?” 

“Of course.” Jyn answers easily, hoping to hide how unnerved she feels. 

-

Denic’s hands are bandaged for the next two days, which leaves the bulk of the work in the garage in Jyn’s. She doesn’t mind the extra load, works hard and makes sure to ask for Denic’s final approval before moving on to the next task. 

“You work as a mechanic before, kid?” Denic asks casually, watching over Jyn while she changes out a busted distributor in the engine of a merchant’s mule. 

“Now and again.” Jyn answers, hefting the corroded part out. The new piece isn’t actually new but it’s a far better condition than the old one, will keep the mule running for a while longer until the merchant can afford a brand new part or a replacement transport all together. Jyn chews on the corner of her mouth. “My father used to build things. I liked to watch.” She had. On Lah’mu. She’d sit next to Papa at the dinner table that doubled as his worktable and watch him tinker with the droids, or make a new viewscreen for his security wall. He’d taught her a little more on Eadu, what he could, when he could. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. 

The rest Jyn picked up from pilots and mechanics, from countless schematics and last ditch efforts to make ancient machines work when their prime had long since passed. 

“You’re good.” Denic says mildly. As close to praise as Jyn’s ever heard from her. 

Jyn snorts. “Does that mean I get a raise?”

Denic tuts. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Dawn. I was only saying.”

-

The bandages come off. Denic returns to work. The summer continues at its slow, dragging pace, each hour sun-bleached and wrung dry. 

Jyn thinks she’ll go mad from the constant day light, goes to sleep to a fiercely lit blue sky and wakes to the same unchanging sky, whatever nightfall still exists on Jedha escapes her in these long dry-season days. 

One day Denic stops Jyn as she’s preparing to leave for the evening, presents her with a battered looking device Jyn recognizes as an imperial tracker. And older model for sure, Jyn can see that immediately, remembers seeing things like it in the scrap heaps on Kieva, dismembered for parts in the rebels’ own trackers. “It’s a junker, don’t worry.” Denic says almost immediately, reading whatever it is that must appear on Jyn’s face. “It was jammed in the last shipment, most likely meant to scare us. Who ever put it there either didn’t know it was a dud or doubted we’d spot the difference.”

“They’re getting smarter though.” Jyn mumbles, turning the disabled tracker over in her hands. They can pry it open and get good coin off the innards if they’re careful dismantling it. Cassian taught Jyn the utmost importance of steady hands in this kind of work. 

“Looks like we’re just gonna have to be smarter then.” Denic says with a dry grin. “Any ideas how?”

Jyn looks up from the device in her hands. “What?”

Denic’s grin doesn’t fade but there’s something steely under its apparent joviality. Her spotted face, creased with care and streaked with grease and sweat, is set with an odd sort of determination. Like this is a task she’d rather not undertake. It makes Jyn wonder what exactly is compelling her to do it. 

“You’re a smart girl, Dawn. We both know that. Old man taught you to build things, right? He teach you how to shoot too?” There’s nothing accusatory to the question but makes Jyn’s stomach clench around something hard and unpleasant. 

“No,” she mumbles. “That was my mother.” 

Denic nods, “That was good of her. Girl can’t be too careful out here. Galaxy being what it is.”

Jyn swallows, but her mouth has gone dry, it feels like choking on sand. She schools her features calm, uncurls her fingers against the urge to balls them into fists. The blaster in her boot burns against her ankle. 

“Humility won’t get you anywhere far on Jedha Dawn, you know that. You know a lot though don’t you. More than you let on.” She nods down at the box, still clutched in Jyn’s hands. “You didn’t even ask what that was for example. You just knew it.” 

Jyn’s face burns. There’s a furious kind of shame rising in her throat. A child’s mistake. 

“I’m not asking what side of the fight you were on. I can guess. Or at least, I can guess what side you’re not on now. It’s all the same to me now.”

“There aren’t any sides in this.” Jyn murmurs, “They kill you or you die on your own. That’s all there is.” She sounds like a child all over again, sitting sullen and still-stunned in Draven’s office, rainwater still dripping down her neck. 

“We can agree on that much.” Denic says, stepping forward and closing one hand on the defunct tracker. “I’m not asking for any story you don’t want to tell Dawn. I promise you. But I’m thinking you know things we haven’t thought up yet, ways they won’t see coming when we hit them again. You want to keep your hands clean, that’s fine, but if they’re plenty dirty already, what’s a little more? I’ll give you part of whatever bounty we manage to get if you help. What do you say?” 

Jyn stares at Denic’s dirty fingernails, her cracked knuckles, the spots on her hands, the same deceptively delicate flecks that dot the bridge of her nose. 

-

This is what Jyn learns that afternoon:

Denic finds out the routes of the imperial supply convoys. Not all of them, but randomly enough that most of them don’t know to prepare for any kind of attack. Revolts in NiJedha have quelled significantly since the initial days of occupation. Every now and again there’s a protest at the mines, or a herald like Wenred in the market square, but these are either silenced by natives or quickly extinguished by troopers. As of yet it seems that Denic’s crew is the only one brave enough—or stupid enough—to go after an actual convoy or guarded resource cache. 

Denic doesn’t tell her who works with her, just that she gets the routes from another informant who passes the information on for a cut of whatever they manage to steal. The others Denic informs after the fact and together they plan their attack. 

“If you know the routes,” Jyn says slowly, still toying nervously with the tracker, “Why not try something preemptive rather than always attack head on in the moment.” Denic raises an interested eyebrow. There’s a small tilt to her chin, a nod for Jyn to continue. They moved their conversation into Denic’s office space, Jyn perched on a bench seat removed from a ship. It’s lumpy and the threading holding the leather together is frayed and loose all over, bits of ratty foam bubbling up where the thread is weakest. There’s a small bit of Jyn that wants to pick at it with her nails but she resists, keeps her hold on the tracker instead. She clears her throat. 

“The transport troopers fly out here—the floor panels aren’t reinforced.” All that time spent learning from General Zyphera, memorizing makes and models, weaknesses, strengths, it all lives inside her head still. “You plant an ion grenade or two along the road, you can knock their whole system down. A convoy this size won’t have more than four guards assigned to it anyhow, you can take four down easily enough, especially if they’re still rattled from a quick stop. Find a grenade big enough and you’ll not only take down their comms, you can fry any trackers someone might plant on the goods. Make less of a spectacle of the whole event and get out quicker.” It’s what Buros would have done, she thinks.

Denic jots something down on a scrap of flimsi, shoves it deep inside her overalls. “That’s a plan.” She says, rising to her feet. There’s a thin prick of surprise. Jyn honestly expected her to push harder, ask more questions about how or why Jyn knows any of this. 

Instead Denic just moves to go, doubles back almost as though she’s just remembered she left Jyn behind. “Well, you coming?”

Jyn takes to her feet, leaves the busted tracker behind on the bench seat. “Where exactly?”

Denic shrugs on her jacket, a battered leather bomber with a ratty fur trimmed collar. It bleeds all the color from her face, reddened and dry as it is at the moment, from prolonged exposure to the summer sun. 

“To Haned’s. I’m buying you a drink. You look like you need one.”

Jyn doesn’t know what to say to that exactly, stumbles after Denic feeling half-drunk already, out into the searing even light. 

-

Jyn is scrubbing grease from her hands in the wash basin affixed to the wall in the back corner of the garage the first time Chirrut Imwe seeks her out.

He appears with a single tap of his walking stick as he crosses over the threshold of the garage, a courtesy knock against the metal door ringing out across the space. 

Jyn drops the disk of soap back into the tin off the side of the basin, grease still caked in the creases of her hands and around her nails. “Denic’s out at the moment—” She starts, wiping her hands dry on her dirty coveralls. 

The man—the same man from the square, Jyn realizes, recognizes the faded blue robes and red sash so similar to the one Mama used to wrap around her waist—grips his staff with both his hands and smiles. His face creases, his pale eyes wrinkling with the force of his smile. He stares forward unblinkingly. “I am not here for Denic. I am here for you. Krestel I presume.” He tips his head towards her.

“Yes.” She says, coming to a stop still far enough to know she can’t be reached, not even if he were to swing his staff. “I’m—that’s me. Can I help you?”

“Chirrut Imwe,” he answers instead, still smiling. “Here to extend my thanks.” A customer, Jyn wonders, though she hasn’t seen this man since that first day out by the old kyber temple. 

“I don’t—”

“You have a great heart inside you,” Chirrut says, as though he hadn’t heard Jyn at all. “But then, the brightest stars always have hearts of kyber.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to say in the previous chapter that the chapter of Denic is a creation of Greg Rukas from Guardians of the Whills though at this point its really just the name and the occupation they have in common since I've expanded the character in this story.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy June y'all! 
> 
> I am entering my last week as a lead teacher in my very first classroom and I know I could not have done it without all of you, your kind words and encouragement that motivated me to continue working on this story even when I felt like I barely had the brain power to brush my teeth never mind pursue creative outlets. 
> 
> Please accept my heartfelt gratitude and eternal heart-eyes! XOXO times infinity.

Chirrut Imwe doesn’t stay long but the memory of the visit lingers long after he’s gone. It leaves something sour as fear at the back of her throat. By the time Denic returns, unhurried and unfazed, windswept and sunburnt, the reddened impression of her heavy-rimmed tinted goggles framing her face, it’s all Jyn can taste. 

“Who else did you tell?” She asks, and it feels dangerous, sharp on her tongue, the words capable of cutting down the flimsy walls Jyn’s spent the last two years raising around herself. But it’s too much, the swell of emotion that crests inside her, the choking possibility of betrayal.

Denic blinks, nose wrinkled with confusion at the sudden burst of sound. She isn’t used to this sort of confrontation, not from the woman she knows as Krestel Dawn. Krestel is as quiet as Jyn knows to be, the silence learned from years of isolation, honed and perfected into shield by a child in search of protection. Cautious as she taught herself to be on Eadu, as cautious as she remained in all her years with the Rebellion. But there’s no room for caution in Jyn now, the very suspicion that makes this vigilance a requirement of life driving all caution from her mouth. 

“Don’t need a hand with these, thanks.” Denic mutters, thrusting an armful of parts into Jyn’s arms. Jyn doesn’t let them drop, her arms tightening instinctively when as her throat throbs around the questions she’s desperate to ask. 

“There was a man here. He said his name was Chirrut—he—”

Denic’s mouth cracks into something thin, a wisp of a grin. 

“Oh, he dropped by.”

“How did he know where to find me?” Jyn asks, “Did you tell him—” There was a presumption of anonymity. A misstep on Jyn’s part obviously. Why had she assumed that Denic’s silence on the topic of her accomplices would extend to Jyn. 

“NiJedha isn’t a metropolis Dawn. Anyone who knows this place knows you’re here. Besides,” Denic adds, the corner of her mouth wrinkled with annoyance. “Imwe’s intuitive. He could have sought you out in a den thick as Coruscant and have found you if he wanted to. Man’s like a dongo with a bone, refuses to let it go once his got his mind on it.” 

It’s sound enough logic but it doesn’t lessen the uneasy feeling roiling in Jyn’s gut. She feels like something has been taken from her, the obscurity and invisibility she’s come to rely on since Eadu,, even if it might have only been an illusion in those halls, a fairytale a child told herself to feel safe in the middle of a pit of vipers. _Don’t let them see you_ , Jyn whispered to herself time and time again, _don’t let them know you’re still here,_ a poor extrapolation of her father’s supplication. _Don’t make them angry._

Someone knows her. Someone sought her out. Even if the man named Chirrut Imwe called her by another name it was Jyn he pinned down with his pale, unseeing eyes. And it was Jyn who felt as though she was being dissected to the core, skin and sinew flayed from her bones with a word that left both memory and heart exposed to the brittle NiJedhan air.

_The brightest stars have hearts of kyber_ he’d said and the crystal almost seemed to shiver against her skin, like it was responding to a call Jyn was deaf to. It’s triggered an avalanche, this silent ringing in her ears, as though something in Jyn has been tipped on its axis. She’ll be swept away, whatever it is, it’ll take her whole if she lets it.

Denic doesn’t know any of this. Or maybe she does, Jyn can’t be sure, her mind cast in shadows and suspicion as though the whole course of her life to date has been a meticulously planned joke, working hard to keep Jyn caught in the same cycles of running and fighting, running and fighting, looking for something to believe in only to lose it in the end. 

Denic steps closer and it’s only then that Jyn feels how quickly her heart is beating in her throat, the sickly dryness of her mouth, the lump of nausea that wiggles and writhes as though desperate to come out. She thinks she’ll be sick, her breathing quickening as though vomit were the worst thing she’s ever had to endure. Denic’s hand closes around her shoulder. Jyn flinches at the touch.

“Listen, we’re not discussing the fate of the galaxy. Don’t think about it like that. We’re not waging the war of good versus evil here, we’re just trying to make sure that we’ve got food on our plates and some extra credits in our purses for when times get bad.” Her skin looks blistered from the heat, red and shiny and already beginning to malt around her hairline. Looking at her stings Jyn’s eyes. “You’ve got something you’re not saying but I want to make this clear, Dawn. I’m not asking. All I’m asking myself is whether you’re the right woman for the job. Because my gut tells me you are. You wouldn’t have made it all the way here without having grit. I’m just waiting on hearing the same from you. Can you do this?”

Jyn’s mind floods, the memory of Draven staring her down in the coffin-narrow confines of his borrowed office aboard the Farragut, the bare bulb glow of the interrogation rooms on Kieva, the bone-bare walls of her cell on Eadu, a grey clad officer asking her to follow, their steps clips and ruthless across the slate floors as she was led to her father’s closed doors. 

Jyn thinks of the children playing in the street, their dust streaked faces, their baleful eyes as they watched the tank rumble past them. If Jyn were in their place, if she had grown up here instead of on the black-soiled hills of Lah’mu, if she had known what it was to have companions who tasted the same mixture of bitter hatred and sour fear ripe on their tongues instead of growing up alone, choking on her own tongue because Papa needed her to comply, to learn silence and wear it like a safety against Krennic’s wrath, would she hesitate now. 

Cassian grew up like them, Jyn thinks unbidden, on Fest and in the arms of the Rebellion.

The thought made something revolt in her, her stomach squeezing around the lump of burning coal that was her fury, the blistering betrayal she still felt at the thought of him. _This has nothing to do with Cassian_ , she tells herself sharply, shakes off the memory of him that clings like a cobweb in her mind.

_You lived your life before him, you’re still living your life now—_

She isn’t a solider anymore. But then, Denic isn’t asking for one.

“I can do this.” Jyn says, meeting Denic’s eyes. “I can.”

Denic cracks a thin foreign smile. Jyn doesn’t allow herself to pretend its pride. “Good.” She grasps Jyn’s shoulder, hard. This time Jyn doesn’t flinch. 

-

It doesn’t change as much as Jyn thought it might. Chirrut Imwe doesn’t reappear at the garage but then perhaps Denic warned him off. Some kind of consolatory reward for Jyn agreeing to join their crew. 

Denic gives Jyn a not insignificant sum of credits in the aftermath of the job Jyn first helped with and Jyn quarters it, hides it among her sparse belongings. She takes a small portion of it and decides to rent a single room for herself, on one of the upper floors of the boarding house. It’s small and the bed isn’t any better quality that the one before, the fresher still shared by all the other boarders on the floor, but Jyn has a space now, for the first time since Eadu—if that room on Eadu was ever even hers and not just a place where she was kept. 

There’s a narrow window, shuttered against the sun and sand, and the warped wooden floors underfoot that seem to absorb every trace of heat in the room. There’s an alcove where Jyn can store her belongings and a small mirror, reflective foil pressed between pieces of plastoid, hangs off the back wall of it. Jyn looks at her face in it sometimes, can’t remember the last time she had a mirror to peer into. Her hair looks lighter than she remembers—not as dark as Mama’s was, back on Lah’mu, more like Papa’s—and her skin is reddened, in a perpetual state of sunburnt, tough under the pads of her fingers. Her mouth is thin, cracked around the rim. (She presses her thumb against the corner of her mouth and does not think about the scratch of his stubble over her face. That was such a long time ago now.)

Jyn pulls a face just to watch the contortions her features yield to when she opens her mouth wide and sticks out her tongue, an ashened shade of pink. Jyn tries on a smile. It looks back at her, out of place and ridiculous on her face, the caricature of happiness.

She puts it away. 

She walks the borders of her room, examines each empty corner, the battered furniture, still feeling jittery beneath all the rest, still waiting for troopers to storm up the stairway and crash through her door. 

But no one comes. 

-

The nights slowly grow longer, the stars return from their exile. 

Jyn bids the dry season farewell by sitting out on the flat stone roof of Denic’s garage and watching stars slowly blink back to life in the darkening night sky. Jyn estimates another year, time trickier to calculate with certainty this far out from the center of the galaxy, standard hours taking second place to the ebb and flow of life planet-side. 

(Jyn used to know her life in hours, in minutes, the cycles of captivity behind the rain curtain and duracreet walls of the compound on Eadu and now one day blurs into the next, sleep the only real divide between one and the one that follows.)

Without the sun out nearly every hour of the day the temperature plummets quickly, and just like that they’re in another winter.

Jyn trades cursing the blistering sun for cursing the cold under her breath as she elbows her way through the crowd at the Old Market. 

She eyeballs a display of portable heating units at a nearby table, her own hands curled into fists inside her old leather jacket. She’s been careful with her credits, knows she has enough to spare to spring for a single measly unit to keep her fingers from snapping off in the cold. She needs her hands, Jyn reasons silently, she can’t exactly do her work without them. She edges closer to the table, nodding at the vendor, an old woman, her grey crinkled hair flying out from beneath the scarf she has wrapped around the lower half of her face. 

Jyn’s just palmed one of the smallest heating units, testing the heft of it in her hand, when she hears a familiar voice over the din of the crowd.

“May the force of others be with you.” Jyn looks up, feels almost as though she’s being spoken to directly, but the man from the garage is no where to be seen. She can still hear him though, the same words over and over again, tapping like the end of his staff against the cement floor of the garage as he walked away from her. “May the force of others be with you.”

She drops the heating unit back on the table, ignoring the pointed stare of the vendor as she walks away. The chanting doesn’t quiet as she walks, if anything it grows clearer, louder, like a summoning, until Jyn rounds the corner at the end of a line of tables and sees him again. Chirrut Imwe. He’s still dressed in the same dark robes, sitting on a low step at the mouth of an alleyway. There’s a cracked bowl at his feet and his staff lays over his knees, his hands loose and untroubled as he calls out to the passing pedestrians. “May the force of others be with you.” Jyn watches from a careful distance. She remembers her first day on Jedha, remembers the people gathered around him, sitting in prayer. Today most of the people walking by don’t spare him a glance, but every now and then someone stops, drops something into the bowl, or else simply stops to greet him. 

There’s only been one other cargo job since that day in the garage. It was small, uneventful, Jyn barely useful, but she’d been paid all the same. Jyn hasn’t sought this man out anymore than he’s returned to the garage, but here he is now. 

He smiles, the same untroubled smile he shared with Jyn in Denic’s garage, and it alleviates the seriousness inherit to his aged face. “Would you trade that necklace for a glimpse into your future?” He asks the air in front of him and then, smile shifting with teasing humor, “Yes, I am talking to you.”

Jyn looks around, uncertain, but there’s no one else he could be talking to. Under her tunic, her mother’s necklace lays against her skin, and she remembers too his words to her all those weeks ago. The same irrational thought returns, floods her mind and turns to a tingly panic in her bones. He knows.

Against all better judgment Jyn takes a step closer. “How do you know I’m wearing a necklace?”

Chirrut tips his head, very nearly charming. “For that answer you must pay.” 

Jyn’s mouth twists, caught somewhere between amusement and apprehension, still. “So you’re a con man?” 

Chirrut doesn’t look offended. To the contrary he laughs. “I’ve been called worst.” He chuckles. 

She takes another step. This is the closest they’ve ever been to one another. His easy grin reveals the creases around his opal-pale eyes, the deep-set lines surrounding his mouth. From this distance she can better see the bright crimson sash tied around his waist. He’d worn the same thing that day in the garage and when she first saw him in the temple square. “My mother used to wear a sash like that.” She says almost before she knows she’s going to say anything at all. Chirrut hums, nodding. “It is worn by those who seek enlightenment.” Jyn nods in return. Her memories of Mama grow dimmer every passing year but Jyn remember her hands, rough from working in the earth, her voice, low and calm. (“Trust the Force.”)

Jyn crouches, ignores the moment of silent rebuke in her head for knowingly leaving herself vulnerable to attack in this position, skipping through the half dozen different ways he might grab at her, but Chirrut Imwe remains perfectly, placidly still. “This necklace was hers.” Jyn tells him quietly, almost as though she were sharing a secret. In a way she is. Jyn is taken aback by the strength of the longing that rises in her, almost as though losing Mama were a fresh wound and not the first of the many scars overlapping over the softest part of Jyn’s heart. Chirrut reaches towards her, but there’s no threat to the movement, his skin cold, rough, but his fingers strong where they press against her palm. “In the Force, there is no end, only beginnings.”

The gesture catches Jyn off guard more than his words do. (Cassian slips his hand against her, reassuring, firm, and Jyn feels anchored by the touch.)

She pulls her hand away, slowly, without malice. Her hand prickles, palm hot.

Jyn drops a credit into his near empty bowl. She doesn’t need a heating unit anyhow.

Chirrut dips his head in thanks.

“May the force of others be with you.” He says kindly. Jyn presses her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The words hook under her skin, drag her in like a lure. “May the force of others be with you.” She echoes softly. 

-

The first time Jyn actually sees what Denic and her crew have been lifting off the Imperials stationed around NiJedha she almost laughs.

It takes her back not to missions with Buros and Maissi but to days and weeks spent in Rebel storage rooms, taking inventories under General Zyphera’s watchful eye. Medicines. Protein packs. Basics for survival. 

“No weapons?” Jyn asks, trying not to sound overly interested. Denic clucks her tongue, shrugs her shoulders. “Not trying to start an uprising, Dawn. There are different ways to get your hands on a blaster if that’s what your after.” 

Jyn shakes her head, closes the crate Denic asked her to open. “No, just, I figured—”

“Livings been rough since the mines got appropriated. People will pay good credits to get their hands on any of this.”

Denic says it matter-of-factly, the same way she might make mention of how cold the winter is on world. Just something that happens. Out of any one person’s control. 

Jyn sees faces, countless faces, men, women, children, human and alien, beaten thin by the unrelenting cruelty of war. So many planets and so little any of them could do to help. She wonders, all over again, how Cassian could be blind to it. The sheer impossibility of the task the Rebellion—and by extension, he—has taken on. When the Empire has everything and there are so many who can profit from the inequality it spreads, what hope do any of the rest of them have but to do whatever they can to keep themselves and those dearest to them alive.

(Mama tried. Mama raised that blaster and Mama fell, disappeared into the grass like she was never there at all.)

That’s just the way of the galaxy. 

-

Night falls early in the winter and it’s full dark by the time Jyn emerges from the garage. The cold is blistering and Jyn hunches her shoulders as close as she can around her ears, the loose tail of her scarf whipping on the wind as she navigates the narrow streets back to the boarding house. Somehow it never fails to astound Jyn how many people there are choking the Old Market regardless of how cold it is. While many of the morning vendors have closed up shop—thieves are probably harder to spot in the dark—there are still innumerable food sellers out, filling the chilled air with steam and a heady mixture of cooking oils, spices, and indistinguishable meats. Most nights Jyn grabs something quick and cheap in the boarding house kitchen, but tonight she spies an opening at the noodle counter. It’s cold enough that the thought of hot broth is too enticing to ignore. 

She has the credits to splurge, she figures, thinking of the crate of medicines and protein packs Denic had fenced. She pushes past the swooping guilt that drops in her stomach and heads in the direction of the noodle counter. 

Ne’za nods to her in greeting when Jyn slides into one of the low seats framing the counter, still stirring two boiling pots with two of their long arms while another works the till. “What’s it tonight?” Jyn asks, sliding her credits towards Ne’za. “Food.” Ne’za answers gruffly, same as always, and Jyn huffs a laugh, happily accepting the bowl of broth and noodles Ne’za pushes towards her with one of their long arms. Ne’za tuts at Jyn when she burns herself, but then turns to another patron. Jyn’s tightens her grip on her spoon when she realizes who it is. 

“Guardians.” Ne’za says, tipping her head in the direction of Chirrut Imwe and the mountain of a man who accompanies him. His blank face twitches into a frown at the greeting, even as Chirrut’s face brightens further. He doesn’t smile outright, but there’s a light about his features all the same, something internal that seems to come through his very skin. (“The brightest stars have hearts of kyber.”) “It must be a good day to bring you both here.” 

“Good enough.” Chirrut agrees, sliding into a chair that another patron vacates, at the counter side perpendicular to the counter Jyn’s seated at. His shadow takes the seat beside him, almost comically large in the low chair, hunched forward towards the counter. Jyn notices his red plastoid armor, the blaster he sets down on the counter without hesitation and the rifle still slung over his shoulder. A mercenary, Jyn thinks, recognizes the look from her time on Holm’s ship. A con man and a mercenary, what a match for a mechanic and a former soldier stealing paltry supplies from Imperial caches. 

It sounds like the set up for a bad joke.

“Baze insisted on your cooking tonight. He insists you’re better at watching a pot than I am.”

Ne’za snorts, unimpressed, producing two more bowls of noodles. “Keep your credits tonight, Guardians.” They respond when the other man—Baze, Jyn presumes—attempts to pay. 

His frown deepens. “There are no Guardians here.”

Ne’za tuts again. “You’ll have nothing but pride in that bowl if you try to pay me again. Now eat.”

Chirrut slurps from his bowl loudly. “This tastes far better than pride, Baze.”

Baze glowers at Chirrut, but there’s no heat to it, and he settles into his own meal soon enough, though Jyn notices that he leaves a credit on the countertop, near his blaster.

Jyn stuffs her own noodles in her mouth as quickly as she can without choking, desperate to get away from here. It seems like inviting bad luck, as though at any moment a squad of troopers will rush the booth and drag them away for their crimes against the Empire. 

“Ne’za’s cooking is too good to rush through, don’t you think.” Chirrut asks seemingly at random. Baze does not stop eating, almost as though he knows at once that Chirrut is not addressing him. Jyn swallows another scalding mouthful, scans the area around her. Ne’za back is to them, minding the other two sides of the counter. 

“Uh—”

“Let her eat in peace.” Baze mutters with his mouth full. 

Chirrut goes on as though he had not spoken at all. “If there was ever a night for hot soup it is tonight.”

Jyn nods and then catches herself, still shaken. “Yes.”

“Is it warm where you are from?” Chirrut asks mildly, pleasantly, like a friend inquires after a long separation.

Jyn doesn’t know how to answer that. “I’m not really from anywhere.” She says, ignoring the memory of Dantooine, evergreen even in the winter.

Chirrut nods, accepting Jyn’s answer without argument. He turns towards his own food for a few moments and they lapse into silent eating. It is almost like sharing a meal. 

Chirrut bids her good night when Jyn rises from her seat and the man at his side acknowledges her, his dark eyes meeting hers as he nods his farewell. Tightlipped as he is, his eyes are kind. Jyn hadn’t expected that. 

-

“What does it mean, guardians?” Jyn asks Denic the following morning, trying to figure out how exactly to remove an kriffing ion cannon and its rigging from it’s mount without causing a small explosion. 

“Temple keepers. Guardians of the Whills. They used to be in charge of keeping the kyber safe for the Jedi and all their ilk. Now it’s just the Empire’s allowed to dig it up. So the temple’s closed and the guardians cut loose to do as they please. Lucky for us those two like to make trouble for the Empire whenever they can. Watch that connector Dawn, without it there’s no way this thing keeps cool enough to fire multiple rounds without combusting on it’s new owner.” 

Denic bought the junky old mule at the impound lot. Jyn almost feels bad for whoever lost it seeing how much work they put into modifying the thing. Most of the work is suspect, Jyn’s surprised it hasn’t blown up already, but there are real serviceable parts mixed in with the trash, the ion cannon in good enough condition that it can still turn a profit. Under the counter of course. 

“And how did you find them?” Jyn asks, more forward than she’d normally dare, but seeing as they’re both handling a weapon that might malfunction and kill them both without warning, she thinks she might be forgiven. 

Denic bites the tip of her tongue, trying to severe the connection between the blaster itself and the mount affixing it to the speeder. “Don’t I strike you as the devout type?” The more work she does the heavier the cannon becomes in Jyn’s arms. “Eh, nothing special. Malbus needed a part for an echo box. I provided assistance, as I do.” She grins. “The rest as they say, is history.”

“They’re odd.” Jyn says finally, sweat prickling along her brow as the cannon tips further into her grip.

“And you don’t know the half of it, Dawn.”

-

Change comes unlooked for, as it always does. Jyn enters the garage one morning and finds Baze Malbus sitting on a tool bench outside Denic’s office, both of them whispering over cups of caf. It takes Jyn back to a morning long ago, watching Baze’s boots from beneath the underside of a speeder. 

Denic rises when she notices Jyn. “Wonderful. We were just discussing a new opportunity.” 

Baze stares at Jyn, obviously unhappily. A part of Jyn thinks she ought to be more nervous, but there’s another part that recalls Makkal, her nonplused glance and relenting silences. Jyn unwinds her scarf from around her head, lets it spool around her neck. She doesn’t remove her jacket, makes her way towards the back of the garage instead. 

“What kind of opportunity?” She asks, accepting the cup of caf Denic passes her way. There’s a faint metallic aftertaste, brewed strong enough to rot Jyn’s gut, but it gives her something to do while Denic exchanges another tense glance with Baze. 

“Just got word of a supply drop. Good sized one, too.”

Jyn nods, waits for Denic to continue, but it’s Baze who speaks next. “Too big, too risky.” 

Denic frowns. She’s obviously heard it before.

“Right big guy, that’s why we’re taking her.” Denic says impatiently, motioning towards Jyn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split this chapter again because I was apparently overly ambitious about how much I could fit in one chapter. 
> 
> Again, the character of Denic and her working connection to Baze and Chirrut comes from Greg Rucka's _Guardians of the Whills_. Any recognizable dialogue exchanged by Chirrut and Jyn in the market comes from _Rogue One_.


	23. Chapter 23

Denic employs her best efforts but Baze Malbus does not strike Jyn as a man easily convinced. 

Jyn feels like a child all over again, watching the adults at their work from cracks in a doorway or from beneath furniture. She half-expects to find Mama watching her, mouth thin and eyes solemn as whenever she caught Jyn somewhere she wasn’t meant to be. She never gave Jyn away, though, would leave her in her hiding hole until the conversation moved elsewhere, almost as though she was afraid of drawing attention to Jyn at all in those large crystal rooms of Jyn’s youth. 

Jyn blinks away the memory, turns to distracting herself by studying her surroundings— after all, this certainly isn’t the first time she’s heard Denic’s proposal since that day in the garage.

She examines the entrances and exits, as always, assesses the one door she and Denic entered through, the narrow window overhead, a single door in the back that might lead into another room or outside. She can only guess. From the look of the place alone she thinks it must be outside, nothing about their location gives the impression of abundance. Even the alleyway that led them to the entryway was claustrophobically narrow. Inside, the walls are bare, earthen washed to match the gritty floor, scattered with sand. But then everything on Jedha seems covered with sand. It’s hardly noteworthy. 

Jyn wonders if it’s a safe house of sorts, it’s so sparse and impersonal. The closest thing to a personal belonging is the tin of loose leaves that Chirrut produced from one of the cabinets in the small corner that makes up the kitchen, and the dingy kettle and chipped mugs Baze produced to brew and serve the bitter drink. 

Neither Baze or Chirrut seem to mind their surroundings. Chirrut is occupied listening intently to Denic’s plan, while Baze sips his tea silently, watching Jyn over the rim of his cup. 

Jyn clenches her hands in her pockets to keep from worrying her fingers, leans back against the wall and returns her attention to the proceedings directly in front of her. Baze, Chirrut, and Denic sit in a loose triangle on the floor, Denic’s hands braced on her knees while Chirrut sits in near-meditative silence. 

Denic clears her throat. “What do you think?” She asks, but it’s more a challenge than an invitation for open feedback. 

Baze fixes Denic with a look that manages to be both firm and incredibly disinterested. “It sounds like unnecessary risk.” 

Chirrut breaks both his silence and his stillness, reaches out to grip the cup Baze set before him nearly an hour ago. Jyn watches him take a sip of his own cup, hears the quiet hum he makes low in his throat. “A greater risk than usual, yes, but not impossible.” 

Denic smiles, raises her cup in Chirrut’s direction. “Thank you Master Imwe.”

Baze scowls at both Denic and Chirrut in turn, though when his eyes slide in Jyn’s direction his face is smooth once more. “The route is further out than usual—”

“Which is why I am volunteering my expert services as a driver.” Denic says impatiently. 

“And there will be more guards—”

“Which Dawn will handle.” 

Baze doesn’t look remotely convinced. “With a wrench?” 

Jyn bristles against the wall. “I can handle myself against Imps, sir.” The reply makes Chirrut laugh. Baze’s brow furrows with distaste, though Jyn can’t be sure if it’s because of her or because he’s being laughed at. Somehow, she knows Chirrut is most definitely not laughing at her.

Denic looks at Jyn and there’s that now familiar calculating look in her eyes, like she’s putting together more than Jyn means to reveal. Against her will Jyn thinks of Buros, of Tymon, of Jericho and the marshlands that swallowed Min, the damp dark tunnels under the surface of the sea on that Quarthian moon.

(The memory of Cassian appears like an uninvited guest, late and hurried to make up for its absence. His arms around her while Jyn shook apart, the cold still thick in her bones after Quarth, his voice in her ear telling her she wasn’t alone. It rips like a blade through Jyn’s side.) 

Her pulse leaps towards the base of her throat and it feels like her heart is dancing against her windpipe, trying to shimmy out through her mouth. 

“Planning an assault is different from executing one.” Baze counters. There’s no condescension in his voice when he says it, just a matter-of-factness, like he’s determined for Jyn to know. To understand what it is Denic means for them to do. 

“I know that, sir.” Jyn says, keeping her tone measured even as she tries to hold the fragments of the past still under the thin surface of her skin. At his side, Chirrut shifts and Jyn watches the movement of his hand, the swift press of it against the bend of Baze’s arm. 

Baze looks at his companion and there’s a moment’s silent communication between them that leaves Jyn feeling stranded. Denic watches them, impatience scrawled over her features. Chirrut’s fingers tap against the crook of Baze’s elbow, three times in quick succession. “We can do this.” He says confidently, but Jyn knows the words aren’t intended to convince Baze. Not any more.

-

Less than a week later Denic ends the day by telling Jyn the Guardians have asked after her. “They’ve requested your help this evening, if you're available.” Denic says, shrugging as though that’s all the information she has to offer. 

“With what?” Jyn asks, but Denic holds her hands up, rattles off a location where Jyn should go. Jyn feels uneasy, dislikes the idea of having to prove herself to strangers, of not being allowed all the necessary information to make the best choice for her own good. It stabs her deep in the belly, almost as viciously as the fear that feels bred into her bones.

Jyn has worked with thieves before, alongside crews like Holms', but there’s something different about this. There’s an intentionality to this particular endeavor that makes it feel less like a job and more like a deliberate strike against the Empire, regardless of what Denic has to say about the ideological indifference of their motives. It feels realer still than looking over poorly drawn maps of the out roads spread across Denic’s floor, realer than speaking words that other men might turn into actions.

Even if all Jyn and the others seek to get out of this is credits and goods, it’ll still mean a few less troopers are around to execute the Empire’s bidding. 

“If we’re going to attempt this fool’s errand, we’ll need better weapons.” Baze says that night, the most consecutive words he’s ever spoken in Jyn’s presence. They’re at the outskirts of NiJehda, at a half-destroyed building near the mesa’s edge. It’s quiet this far out from the city center, nothing but the wind rattling through stone and mud buildings still standing and the occasional prowler. Those who still reside in these parts remain indoors at this hour, trying to keep the winter cold out of their homes. 

“I think Denic would know best who to buy those from.” Jyn answers, apprehension still needling along her ribs, making each breath draw shorter than she needs. 

Chirrut lets loose a long, low laugh that seems almost too loud in the nighttime quiet. “I’ve tried telling him that,” He says pleasantly from his low perch on the ground, voice colored with equal amounts of bemusement and disparagement. “But Baze has something a little bit different in mind.” 

-

“You want to steal _what_?” Jyn hisses, voice low to keep it from echoing.

What happens next surprises her almost as much as Baze Malbus’ request. He smiles. It does not transform his stern face, but it colors his features with humor and warmth. It suits him better than Jyn thought possible. 

“You do know those aren’t meant to be used as personal weapons, right?” Jyn asks, still somewhat doubtful of what it is Baze means to accomplish with tonight’s excursion. 

“Are you saying you can’t do it then?” Baze asks, half-teasing. Jyn knows when she’s being baited but she’s never been one to reject a challenge. She braces her hands against her hips. “I can do it. If you can handle it is entirely on you.”

Chirrut sniggers, slaps his hand against his thigh before rising to his feet. “I told you I liked her.” 

Baze snorts. 

Jyn’s eyes roam back and forth between them, a little at a lost. But not afraid. “Ready whenever you are.”

-

The last of the gang members goes down with a satisfying thwack of Jyn’s truncheon, jabbed hard into the soft hollow of their belly. Her heart beats hard against the cage of her ribs and she blinks, flushed with the exertion of a fight. Even if she hasn’t had much chance to use these particular skills in NiJedha she hasn’t entirely given up the practices and drills Makkal used to make her run, back before Jyn was even a rebel. It’s easier now with a space of her own in which to practice, but even before then Jyn could at least sneak to the roof of the boarding house of else to the small strip of land behind the garage when Denic was busy elsewhere. 

Tonight it’s paid off, three different gang members lying on the ground while Jyn still stands, truncheon in hand. She can hear the familiar sounds of battle deeper in the warehouse, runs towards them with her heart still singing and her blood still racing, palm blazing around her weapon as she closes the distance. Around a half dismantled tank she comes to a halt, startled into stillness as she watches Chirrut sweep his staff in a semi-circle, a flurry of movement so quick Jyn almost misses it as he brings his opponent down hard before delivering a solid hit to their head, rendering them unconscious. Another body on the floor to accompany at least _six_ others Jyn can see (her previous sense of accomplishment diminishes just a little at the sight). 

“Hello again.” Chirrut greets her as mildly as he might any day in the Old Market. He doesn’t even appear to be out of breath. 

“If you two are not too busy down there.” Comes Baze's voice from overhead and Jyn nearly jumps, head whipping upward so quickly something clicks along the column of her spine. Baze is atop the tank, soldering off the repeater cannon mounted to the front. Or trying to. Jyn scrambles up the side vehicle until she’s standing beside Baze on top of it. The chop shop rings with the new silence, all its previous occupants either fled or lying unconscious on the floor. 

“Hold it,” she instructs Baze, motioning towards the cannon itself. Baze doesn’t hesitate to pass the soldering torch off to Jyn, who takes it with deft fingers and picks up where he left off. A little more and they would have needed to find new connector cables to affix this thing to a reliable energy source. Jyn holds her breath as she slices through the last remaining metal connecting the cannon proper to its mounting. Baze braces its weight with a low grunt, picks it up so that Jyn can get at the bundle of wires and cables still intact. 

Jyn doesn’t have to remind him to keep it steady, his grip fixed around the solid bulk of the machine. 

She’s starting to think carrying it won’t pose much of a problem at all. 

-

They smuggle their stolen cannon back to the garage. Jyn explains that she can jury-rig a type of harness so that Baze can carry the coolant chamber on his back, “So you don’t blow yourself up, y’know.” Jyn adds, earning her another one of Chirrut’s pleased smiles. Even Baze seems somewhat amused, thanking Jyn with a small nod of his head. 

She manages to keep her word though she requires Denic’s help for most of it. They present their creation to Baze two days later. It certainly seems to better Baze’s opinion of the whole enterprise. 

They see more of each other in the following days, spend their time devising the best plan they can in the little time afforded to them, using the cover of early nightfall to converge and prepare. Most nights its out at the ruined house on the borders of the city, but tonight they’re back in the sparse rooms from the week before. Jyn now knows it is Baze and Chirrut’s home and the information changes everything she saw before, makes her curious to reassess every corner of it on display. 

“Have you always lived on Jedha?” Jyn asks, trying to disguise her frank curiosity. 

Baze nods, examining Chirrut’s lightbow (Jyn’s never seen a weapon like it before but Baze seems familiar with it, handles it efficiently and with a degree of deference as he looks it over, regardless of his tone when he chides Chirrut to pick a different weapon). 

“In the ways that matter.” Chirrut answers, tipping his head towards Baze. “This has been our home.” 

Home. The word makes something small pinch in Jyn’s chest, just behind her heart. Chirrut’s eyes peer sightlessly in her direction and Jyn feels exposed under the attention. Even in the absence of any kind of threat, the idea of being seen without defenses chafes. Jyn swallows, shifts backward, tries to orient her attention elsewhere. “You used to—before—you used to work at the temple right? Before the Empire arrived.” 

Chirrut’s lips press together into a tired line. “It was not work. Serving the Force is a lifelong commitment—”

Baze snorts, but the warm humor Jyn’s gleaned here and there in the last week is missing this time. The tiredness in Chirrut’s face deepens, though only for a moment, disappearing in the next second, there and gone again like a trick of the light. 

“That’s where we met, you know. At the Kyber Temple.” Chirrut says after a short pause, motioning with one hand towards Baze. “We were paired together to complete our chores as children.” There is so much in the weight of his voice, the natural extension of his arm towards the man at his side. The tiredness from before dims into distant memory at the sight of the smile Chirrut sends Baze’s way. “The rest as they say is history.”

Baze sighs, but the terseness is softened, his eyes grazing Chirrut’s face quickly before returning to the weapon in his hand. “You’re history perhaps, old timer.”

Chirrut’s mouth twists into a grin, his voice rich with mirth when he says, “That is the sort of sweet talk that keeps me around to this day.” 

Jyn bites back a corresponding grin. She wonders what it must be like, to know someone your entire life. To be known, through the ends of the world and a life’s remaking. She can’t imagine what that must take. 

-

“May the Force of others be with you.” Chirrut says to a passing market patron, and Jyn watches as they drop a credit into his near-empty alms bowl. 

Jyn approaches, takes a seat near him. He’s out later than usual today, Jyn had been surprised when she spotted him on her walk home from the garage. “Good day?” Jyn asks, passing him the cup of caf she purchased from a nearby food vendor. The stone beneath her and at her back is frozen through, she can’t imagine how Chirrut feels after sitting here for hours on end. 

“There are few bad days in the Force.” Chirrut answers whimsically, pale eyes crinkling with his smile. “But you have vastly improved this one.” He says, accepting the caf. 

They sit together drinking their caf in companionable silence, Jyn curiosity burning in her throat. “You know, Denic makes enough to keep the garage going even when business is slim, surely you and Baze collect enough to make this…unnecessary.”

Chirrut doesn’t seem especially offended. “When I took my orders I swore to protect the Temple of the Kyber. Do you think that just because it’s doors are closed and the kyber mined by the Empire, that my orders have ceased to matter? A temple is more than a building, Miss Dawn. These people remain my charges and Jedha my responsibility. I could no sooner place my comfort over their wellbeing than I could stop trusting the Force.” 

Jyn feels flushed in the cold. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry. I’m much too stubborn to be offended. I don’t mean to guilt you. You are free to do what you feel needs to be done. That is all any of us can do. Baze and I have simply chosen to do this. We have lived with very little before. Less than this even. We are rich in other ways.” 

Jyn bites her lip and thinks of the look on Baze Malbus’ face whenever he sips a cup of tarin tea. She doesn’t know that he would agree. 

Chirrut laughs quietly at her side, displays that uncanny ability to perceive Jyn’s thoughts that she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to. “Baze might have lost his faith in the Force but he has not lost his devotion to Jedha. If anything, I think his sense of responsibility has only grown under the Empire’s reign. I believe he is happiest now knowing he can provide some form of aid while also causing the Empire some amount of damage.” 

“Have you ever thought—” Jyn swallows, the words stuck in her throat, too big, too impossible to get out the first time. “Have you ever considered going elsewhere? There are people out there fighting on a larger scale.” The Rebellion with all its shifting parts, incongruent pieces trying to establish some kind of battle front against an enemy bigger than all of its parts combined. She tries to imagine Chirrut and Baze among their numbers, thinks Cassian could grow to like them for the strength of their convictions alone. She shuts the thought away as quickly as it comes. 

Chirrut dips his head. “It’s crossed our mind before but our place is here. It is not the fight that is worth seeking, Krestel. What use is a fight without something to defend?”

-

The garrison meant to patrol Jedha is stationed permanently aboard a Star Destroyer that orbits the moon. Smaller transports fill the airspace above the city, shuttle troopers back and forth in endless cycles, but the Star Destroyer itself only appears when its orbit brings it into sight, a regular eclipse that blocks out the natural sky. 

The next time the Star Destroyer takes up space in the NiJedhan sky Jyn knows what it means. Jyn goes about her day with a knot in her stomach, an unrelenting buzz at the base of her skull she tries hard to ignore as she works. Denic seems equally distracted, moving about the garage as though in a daze, checking and rechecking her work and Jyn’s, her usual composure cracked. 

Jyn wants to reassure her, but she doesn’t want to lie, can’t assure her that everything will go according to plan when they set out tonight. 

After work she strips off her coveralls and unwinds the scarf from around her hair. It falls out of the knot at the base of her neck and Jyn reaches behind her, unwinds it so that it falls at its full length over her back. She hasn’t cut it since she left Holms’ crew behind her, and it takes her a moment to count stray days and loose weeks, the formless months of wandering into, tally them into an approximation of years. Nearly three, by her best count, though it doesn’t seem right, Dantooine feels so much farther than that. She weaves her hair into a tight plait, the way she used to when she was younger. Afterward she dons her heavy leather jacket, wraps Makkal’s scarf under her chin. She bids Denic good night. Denic nods, mouth stern, "Of course, I'll see you tomorrow Dawn." Her eyes linger on Jyn's face as Jyn heads out into the chilled night. 

She fists her hands tight into her pockets, her skin prickling where her blaster presses against it, her shoulders tightening with every step. Jyn feels conspicuous, as though her every movement were attracting every single passing eye towards her. But she knows it’s in her head, knows that no one, not even the people who know her by sight, are thinking twice as she passes. 

Of all the things Jyn knows, its how to go by unseen. She won’t doubt it now. 

She arrives at the rendezvous point ahead of schedule. Jyn uses the time to check her weapons, reviews their plan once more. Of the four busiest imperial landing ports in and out of the city, they’re going after the second largest. According to Denic’s source, the same that provides them with all the information about upcoming supply transports, the roads between it and the main landing port are the longest and isolated enough that they can hope to get close unseen. They’ll get past the barricades easily enough with the passcode included in Denic’s information, but it’s once they actually encounter the supply convoy that things will get interesting. 

Jyn predicts at least a dozen troopers, more if a distress signal goes out successfully. They’ll have to use Baze’s ion cannon to scramble their electronics and hopefully draw all the troopers out at once and use the cover of darkness to their advantage. 

Jyn repeats the steps in her head again and again as though they were not already committed to memory, palm flattened over her mother’s necklace where it remains tucked safely beneath her shirt. 

-

Baze lifts his binocs, peering out at the empty road beyond the outcropping of rocks they’re lying on. Denic and the speeder are a click south from their current location, safely out of way, but it still takes Jyn a moment to Denic her out of her mind. She hadn't expected to feel this nervous like some kind of new recruit. Though, she thinks wryly, she guess that's what she is now. 

“Well?” Chirrut asks from Baze’s other side after a moment of quiet observation. 

Baze grunts under his breath. “Aren’t you always going on about patience?”

“Is this how you always are?” Jyn whispers at them, squinting out at the dark desert surrounding them. 

Baze’s shoulder knocks into Jyn’s, “Waiting gets boring otherwise.” 

Jyn huffs a silent laugh against all instinct, belly pressed against the cold stone. Overhead, the sky was dark folds of blue and purple and black, pinpricked with stars, outlining the shape of the Star Destroyer. The nervous energy in her body coils cooly around her limbs, over and over. Jyn reminds herself to breathe.

“They’re coming.” Chirrut breathes and Jyn turns her eyes back on the road, strains her eyes to see whatever it was Chirrut is picking up—through his echo box? The Force? Jyn doesn’t know and now is hardly the time to ask—and Baze adjusts his binocs. 

Jyn hears it before she sees any sign of it, the vibrating drone of the tank convoy moving down the dark desert road. A dust cloud rises ahead of it and behind it, a swirling shadow in the otherwise still night. 

Baze sets his binocs aside. “I told you it was them.” Chirrut says, voice dipping into smugness, and Baze shifts down the rockface in order to rise on his knees and unstrap the ion cannon from its holster. He looks at Jyn and says, “Go now.”

Jyn goes, aware as she slips down the stones that Chirrut is right beside her, sometimes pulling ahead. Chirrut moves over the rocks like a stream, familiar in its course, landing softly on the flat ground with barely a sound. He removes his staff from his back, keeps low and Jyn follows him, takes her position behind a rough prickly bush. It wouldn’t make good cover during the day but it’ll do for now. She unholsters her blaster with one hand, heart beating hard against her breastbone, sweat collecting along her spine. The cold bites at her bones. Jyn shivers and can’t say if its from cold or adrenaline or fear. A mixture of all three. Her stomach rolls inside her throat.

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.” Chirrut whispers at Jyn’s side barely audible over the heavy drone of the approaching tank. Jyn tightens her grip on her blaster. She takes a deep breath. 

Trust the Force, Mama told her. 

_The Force is with me._ Jyn repeats silently.

The convoy is nearly atop them. There’s the sudden crack of twin shots, a flash of red, the desert flooded with the scent of ozone and burnt metal. 

That’s just the start. 

-

The troopers spill out, blasters raised towards the hills. Jyn counts as they appear. One, two, four, six, nine, twelve. Thirteen. She doesn’t know if that’s everyone but she hopes for their sake that it is. 

Chirrut and Jyn move. The first few troopers go down easy, taken down by surprise. Chirrut escapes her notice, whirls away in a silent storm of movement, and Jyn’s focus narrows down to the opponent directly before her. She shoots, spares only enough attention to make sure the trooper is down before moving on to the next one. She catches another off guard by swinging hard with a truncheon where they leave their side exposed, knocks the blaster out of the trooper's hands and brings the truncheon down hard against their helmet. It cracks under the blow and the trooper crumbles. 

It’s like falling back in time, slipping into a skin Jyn thought she’d shed long ago. She moves, swings, shoots. She forgets Chirrut, forgets Baze, forgets the cargo. There’s nothing but the urge to make sure she wins the fight. 

(“Anyone ever tell you you’re a competitive little shit?” Makkal pants, wiping sweat off her brow, sitting down on the training mat. “You're one to talk.” Jyn answers, grinning, happy with her victory. Makkal rises to her feet. “Best two out of three, Erso. Let’s go.”)

For the first time in nearly three years Jyn fights and feels herself. The familiar anger that carried her through her youth reappears, distilled into the same fuel that saw her through training under Makkal’s guidance. The hatred burning throughout her body is the oldest Jyn knows, a wrath that could hollow her out if she allowed it. The Empire took everything from her. It took her mother and her father and her life, tried to reduce Jyn down to nothing more than a slip of a person, locked up and alone.

It’s that rage that propels her forward even as her arms tire and her breath grows short. It compels her to keep fighting. 

Fear is just as powerful a source of motivation. Jyn knows that. Later she’ll recognize the fear in the trooper’s movements, the mad scramble for a weapon after Jyn’s disarmed them. Later Jyn will chastise herself, the arrogance of her approach, the carelessness of her stance. Later she’ll accept how she left herself open to attack. 

The trooper doesn’t bother looking for a weapon, lunges at Jyn with their whole body and knocks her down into the hard-packed dirt. Jyn grunts, the air knocked out of her, kicks her legs to try and gain leverage, upend the trooper sitting directly atop her.

The trooper is beating Jyn’s hand against the stone, trying to loosen her grip on her blaster, and Jyn scratches at the hard plastoid armor, looks for anything she can use to get herself free. She grabs at something and it gives in her grasp, slides loose and Jyn barely has time to register the vibroblade she’s holding before she’s trying to stab it between the white plates. The trooper knocks Jyn’s hand down hard and Jyn plunges the blade into the soft spot beneath their arm, uses the trooper’s jerk of pained surprise to knock them off her. Jyn pants, finding her feet, searching in the dark for her blaster, any weapon, still aware of the fight going on around her. (“You’re out of practice, Erso.” Makkal chides, Jyn pinned under her forearm. “I leave for a month and you forget everything I taught you?”)

Her arm aches, her hand bleeding and sore, and Jyn staggers towards a discarded weapon, leaving her back exposed. 

She doesn’t scream when the blade cuts into her side. There isn’t enough air in her to scream. She pulls away, stung, and there’s the corresponding pain of the blade twisting free from the wound, and Jyn rounds, uses the momentum to swing the bulky Imperial rifle into the trooper’s face. They finally fall. Jyn’s knees threaten to buckle. Oh, hell. 

She tries to remember everything she learned about basic field medicine, but her mind is turning over and over, and there’s a mission, still the mission. She takes a step forward, rounds the back of the tank where the supply cache is still attached. She walks directly into a stormtrooper’s blaster barrel.

She breathes deeply through the searing pain, uses the adrenaline to force herself forward, tackles the trooper against the transport. The trooper wrestles against her and Jyn’s right hand is slick with blood, but she forces her grip tighter, keeps the blaster aimed at the trooper’s boots. 

“Drop.” Baze barks behind her and Jyn doesn’t hesitate, throws herself sideways into the dirt and stone, eyes clenched shut against the jarring pain that flares to life throughout her entire body at the impact. There’s the consecutive bite of Baze’s repeater blaster shooting, the faint impression of it flashing through Jyn’s eyelids as she lies panting on the ground. The trooper falls (the sound doesn’t change, it doesn’t matter the planet, the years. The sound remains the same. The rattle of plastoid armor clattering against the ground). 

Jyn lies motionless on the ground. She can’t breathe but she can’t ignore her empty hands, needs a weapon, any weapon, needs to rejoin the fight.

But already the sounds of fighting are quieting down, the night’s quiet resuming as the last trooper is taken care of all while Jyn lies useless, bleeding out into the sand. Kriffing hell, Jyn thinks, head spinning. 

“She’s hurt.” Comes Chirrut’s voice and then his hand, rough but so gentle against her face, “We need to get her back.” He instructs Baze, and then Baze is there, blotting out the night sky overhead as he drops to his knees beside her. He presses his hands against the wound in her side and Jyn bites back a howl, hissing through her teeth. Her whole body shakes. 

“Hang on.” Baze says and then falls silent. Before Jyn can do anything but clench her jaw he’s lifting her into his arms. The sky overhead turns in dizzying circles, the stars dipping and bowing overhead. Jyn closes her eyes, swallows the dryness in her throat. Her mouth tastes like bile and dirt. 

“The cargo.” Jyn grinds out, each word jagged in her throat. “We need the cargo.”

“He’s on it.” Baze bites back, moving, and each step he takes feels like a another stab in her side. Baze doesn’t speak another word, moves them through the sand as though Jyn were nothing more than a ragdoll in his arms. 

Jyn doesn’t know what exactly it is Chirrut manages, or how he does it, she keeps her eyes closed and tries her hardest not to cry. 

(Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Mama always asked Jyn not to cry and Jyn has only ever wanted to be brave like Mama.)

She wishes she were brave like Mama. But she’s still scared of falling. 

-

Jyn dreams herself a child. She is floating on her back, the waves of the lake lap gently alongside and under her, hold her up. She can hear Mama’s voice in her head, the sky overhead a sullen kind of grey, like a storm on the far horizon. 

“That’s it Jyn, you’ve got it.” 

Jyn dreams herself a child, smaller still, Papa hoisting her up out of a closed doorway. “Stardust.” He calls her, kissing her head before lying her down to sleep. 

Jyn dreams herself at the bottom of a hole, staring upward into a circle of blinding light. 

-

“Krestel,” Baze says, and there’s a warning his tone. Somewhere nearby Denic curses, Jyn can’t make sense of the words, and there’s a reprimand in her tone when she demands to know what happened. “A fight.” Baze answers simply, and then he’s setting Jyn down on the speeder floor. Everything smells like engine grease and stale oil. The speeder hums, stationary, and Baze presses something to Jyn’s side, cool as it goes on and then blazing under her skin. She hisses. 

“That’ll hold, but we need to take her to Saaja, quick.” Baze says and Denic’s response is a mumble, the speeder rumbling more fiercely under Jyn’s back. 

“Chirrut.” Jyn manages, the fire in her side spreading throughout her chest. It seems to tighten like a vice across her ribcage, fuse her bones together. “We can’t leave.”

No one answers. Chirrut’s arrival is announced by the solid thud of his staff being tossed into the speeder. “How is she?” He asks and Jyn can’t make out more than the glimmer of his pale eyes in the dark. 

“Been better.” Jyn gasps, and the words cost her, throat constricting as the pressure in her chest grows. 

“Baze—” Chirrut starts and the engine revs, the speeder lurching into sudden motion. “Hang on.” Denic barks, and Jyn’s hands slide, slippery with sweat and blood, against the speeder floor. Baze’s hands secure her in place. 

“We’re nearly there.” He says and that’s a lie, Jyn knows it is. They’re a good ways beyond the barricades enclosing the city and there’s still the possibility that someone will have noticed that the convoy didn’t arrive as scheduled, the chance that patrol stations inside NiJedha have already been made aware.

There’s still a chance they could die out here under Imperial fire.

Jyn sucks in another breath and it hurts, strains everything inside her to do it, and she feels like she’s sinking, heavy, being swallowed by the dark. Her eyes sting. 

There’s still enough of Jyn’s right mind left to wonder what’s become of the cargo, but it’s falling further and further out of her reach, buried under the fogbank of pain and exhaustion that’s rolling over every part of her. Her limbs are still shaking but she can hardly feel it now. 

“Jyn.” She breathes, so low she doesn’t think Baze can hear her. But she wants him to know, wants someone to know. She wants someone to know she’s gone. The idea of being forgotten, erased completely from time, makes her feel cold. Scared. Jyn has always wanted to be brave and yet—

“My name is Jyn.” 

Baze’s hands squeeze carefully where they’re braced against Jyn’s body, keeping her in still as the speeder races across the desert. 

A hundred thoughts circle round and round inside her head, blur together like the cloud of stars overhead, swirling in and out of focus. Mama falling and Papa’s hands hoisting her up, the locked door of her room on Eadu, white, impenetrable, Krennic’s shoulders and the fall of his cape, Makkal correcting her stance— _you’re out of practice, Erso. Don’t go getting sloppy now_ —and Draven staring her down across a cluttered desk. Cassian’s arms locked around her in the belly of the Farragut and the feeling in the pit of her stomach. Like falling without knowing where the bottom lay. 

Baze pulls away, removes the reassuring solidity of his body and Jyn feels as though her last tether has been severed. She’s been set adrift. 

She gets lost in nothingness. 

-

“You were the only family I had left.” He says, voice soft. Jyn turns towards him, reaches for his face in the dark. She can’t make out his features and she wonders how they’ve changed, if she would know him now. She strokes her fingers through his hair, traces the line of his jaw, the shape of his ear, touches her thumb to the corner of his eye, shivers at the flick of his eyelashes against her skin. His eyes won’t have changed, she thinks, she’d know them anywhere. 

“Do you miss me?” Jyn asks, pressing her mouth to his, kisses him with all the softness she’s capable of.

The Cassian in her dream, part phantom, part stranger, remains silent. He always does. 

-

The air is thick with sweet-smelling incense, it clogs Jyn’s nose and worsens the dryness in her throat, makes the pounding in her head double, then triple in intensity within moments of regaining consciousness. 

Her side protests when she tries to move, startles a weak cry of pain from her lips. 

“Easy.” Comes a voice from beside her, and Jyn allows a steady hand to guide her backward, until her head rests back against the thin blanket that doubles as her pillow. She blinks up at Baze, his careworn face, his dark eyes. “You’re going to feel terrible for a while yet.”

Jyn’s mouth twitches. She doesn’t think she’d expect anything else from Baze’s bedside manner. 

“Chirrut?” She asks, keeps her voice low, though she thinks that wherever she is must be safe for Baze to trust it. 

“He’s taking care of things. Don’t worry. He’s alright.”

Jyn accepts his words silently, watches his face for any trace of dishonesty. She’s too tired for this. Let’s her eyes slips closed. 

“What happened—” Baze starts, pausing, “It could have been bad.”

Jyn opens her eyes long enough to stare back. “We made it back.”

Baze is silent. He breathes in deep. “You’ll have to be careful, Jyn.”

It’s hard to keep her eyes open. Whatever she’s breathing in makes her head feel warm and heavy. Like there’s cotton rags stuffed between her ears. 

Baze is not looking at her. He’s studying his hands, his scabbed knuckles, his dirty nails. She can’t say with any kind of certainty if its to lessen her discomfort or his. 

Jyn’s eyelids drop closed. Something flutters in her throat, fitful as a trapped moth, it resists when she tries to swallow it whole. It’s been so long since she heard her name. 

“I’m out of practice.” Jyn says softly, before adding, “Thank you for bringing me back.” He didn’t have to.

Baze says nothing for a long time. Then his fingertips touch the back of her hand, gentle, quick. “Rest now,” He says, voice unwaveringly kind. “Little sister.”

It makes all of Jyn ache, full of her familiar sorrow and something else. A half-remembered tenderness. Mama’s fingers combing through her hair. Papa tucking the blankets under her chin. 

(“It’s alright,” Cassian whispers against her skin, arms locked around her, holding Jyn upright when all of her feels cut loose. “You’re alright now.”)

Jyn sleeps.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter to greet the new school year! 
> 
> We're two weeks into school and I am drafting chapters during my lunch break between meetings once more :-)
> 
> This sounds a hundred years away buuut the conclusion is near. I've officially started the rough draft of the last chapter. Fingers crossed I'll wrap this story up by the end of this year. 
> 
> Thank yous and hugs to each and every reader for hanging in here with me. I'm still having a blast and I hope you are too.

-

Jyn dreams of her father. 

They are back in their room on Coruscant, everything opulent, shining chrome or else covered in soft red velvets, but the world outside the windows is grey, rain pelting the shining glass. Jyn leans against the cool window pane, so close her nose leaves a smudge, but her breath leaves no trace when she exhales against the glass.

Mama is gone, Jyn knows it, does not turn to look for her the way she might have in reality, keeps her eyes fixed on the rain trailing rivets and streams on the other side of the window. Papa stands at Jyn’s side, just out of reach, but Jyn knows he is there. 

She catches a glimpse of her reflection and sees herself, not a child in twin plaits but as she is now, worn thin and roughened by trials and losses. _I look like Mama_ , Jyn thinks. Tired. Frayed.

“Everything I do, I do it to protect you.” Papa says, his hand on her shoulder and Jyn wants to turn to look at him, but she doesn’t. She can’t. 

The rain falls harder, hits the windows like blaster shots, so hard Jyn thinks the glass will crack and her and Papa will plummet into the swirling dark below.

-

“Jyn.” Someone whispers, soft, rough, “Jyn.” 

She struggles to open her eyes, her eyelids heavy as iron, her body weighed down, every limb heavy and overly-warm. Her jaw refuses to cooperated when she tries to pry her mouth loose. 

The air is hot on her tongue when she finally manages it, taste faintly of copper, leaves a metallic, bitter aftertaste at the back of her throat. Jyn groans. Her chest aches as though the sound were torn from somewhere tender inside her.

“Jyn.” The voice shifts, turns commanding, and Jyn’s eyes finally open. There’s a disorienting moment, the cracked plaster ceiling overhead blurring into a single dizzying mass. Jyn squints. 

She expects the glaring white lights of the medbay, the hum of instruments, the murmur of medics. She looks for Makkal’s familiar face, stern and sharp, looks for Cassian, tired and worried, but there are no rebels to greet her. Not soldiers anyhow. 

Instead she finds Chirrut Imwe’s pale sightless eyes, his usual humorous mouth flat with concern. Not Dantooine, the thought sinks to the pit of Jyn’s stomach like a stone cutting through water until it hits the bottom. Not Dantooine. 

She tries to speak but her voice sticks in her throat. Whatever is burning in the room is even thicker than before, weighs Jyn down to the bedroll. Chirrut’s hand touches her brow as though he were checking for a fever. “Water?” he asks, hand disappearing so he can lift a small tin cup from somewhere nearby. Jyn sips water slowly. It’s cold and clean and clears some of the heaviness of her head. 

Her dream presses up against the insides of her skull, carves up the soft tissue of her brain until it’s all she can see. She blinks slowly. Her father’s shadow remains. 

-

The walk back to her room is slow and tedious, Jyn’s weight braced against Denic’s side as they make their way through the narrowest alley ways, those too small for troopers in all their armor to squeeze through. It feels like it takes eons to cut through the city. 

Early risers are already up and readying for the day ahead, neighbors Jyn rarely sees despite keeping a room at this very boarding house for years now. So many of them come and go, she learned that early, it lessened the importance of getting to know anybody well. It stings, another sort of regret, and Jyn flinches, her heavy muscles struggling against the impulse as Denic maneuvers them out of the way at the base of a stairwell to let two other boarders pass. “Got too deep in her cups.” Denic says gruffly, hauling Jyn closer as they begin their ascent up the stairs. Someone chuckles, Jyn doesn’t turn to see who, puts all her focus on lifting her foot enough to reach the next step. 

Denic’s grip is merciless around her waist, her fingers clawing into Jyn’s wrist to keep it wrapped round her shoulders as they go up. One step. Two. “Careful.” Denic grunts when Jyn stumbles, her knee crashing against the edge of a landing, hoisting her upward again. “Steady now. We’re nearly there. Don’t go bashing your brains loose now.” The words are sharp with impatience, and Jyn wants to snap back almost as badly as she wants to shrink away from the reproach. 

(“Everything I do, I do it to protect you. Say you understand.” Papa’s eyes flash towards Jyn across the expanse of a dinner table, begging her to keep silent, to play a part, and Jyn chews her lips bloody, resentment sour on her tongue. Jyn hates him then, so fiercely she feels hollowed out by the force of it.)

“So, this is you then?” Denic says, though she doesn’t wait for an answer before dislodging Jyn to rest against the nearest wall while she opens the door. The room on the other side is cold, gone too long without an occupant. Denic curses under her breath and helps Jyn cross the last few steps from the doorway to her bed, sets her down with the closest thing to gentleness she’s displayed since helping Jyn out of the medic’s house nearly an hour ago. 

“Saaja says you’re supposed to rest.” Denic says shortly, fishing in her jacket pockets for the foiled packet Saaja had pressed into Jyn’s hand before sending them out. “And take one of these later. Kriffing hell, it’s cold in here.” She huffs into her clasped hands, goes over to Jyn’s windows to make sure their shuttered tight. “You going to be alright?”

Jyn nods dumbly, shifts to lay down before her bones give out. Denic moves out of the corner of Jyn’s eye, and then she feels her, tugging off Jyn’s dusty boots with quick efficient movements. They clatter to the floor with matching thuds. Jyn pulls the blanket out from beneath her, pulls it over her as best she can. 

“I’m going to head out. Got to get the garage open. I’ll have someone check on you in a while. Try not to die.” 

Jyn isn’t listening anymore, unconsciousness already stealing over her again. 

(She wonders if they’re dead, the trooper she stabbed with their own blade. She can still feel their blood on her fingers, slick and hot, drying sticky in the creases of her knuckles. She hopes they’re dead.)

-

Papa is calling her name. Outside thunder roars, lightening cracks the sky in two, Jyn can see it through the slim windows high up on the duracreet walls. The floor beneath Jyn’s boots trembles, the entire length of the hallway groans as she runs, and in that moment Jyn is nothing more than a child, running away from the jaws of a monster. 

“Jyn!” Papa is calling and Jyn wills her legs to move faster, seeks him out as the wall to her right shatters like pane of glass. Rain pours through the opening and Jyn goes sliding across the dark floor.

The sky is on fire, Jyn thinks, scrambling to her feet, palms bloody, knees skinned, rain soaking her clothes and weighing her down. “Papa,” she yells, but the wind scatters her voice, beats it to nothing against the cragged rockface of the mountains outside. “I’m here.” She tries again, but there’s only more thunder, more fire, more rain. 

The wind howls in Jyn’s ears, chases her down another corridor and the next, an angry, mournful cry. 

-

Jyn wakes to a pair of curious eyes peering directly into her face and a finger digging into her cheek. “Hmph.” She groans, tilting her face away. It’s only the sluggishness filling her bones with lead that stops her from jerking away entirely. Jyn watches the eyes narrow as they watch her, a curious shade of amber, and the finger returns, jabbing into Jyn’s face persistently.

“Stop.” Jyn snaps, lifting her hand to bat the hand away. She catches sight of her fingers, her wrist ringed with bruises and her trigger finger is fastened to her middle finger to keep it still while it heals. It stalls her and the prodding hand retreats, along with the girl it belongs to. Jyn props herself up on an elbow, bites back a pained hiss at the upsetting pull in her side when she moves. Her intruder stares back at Jyn hard, frowning. “Back.” She says, coming closer again and pushing at Jyn’s shoulder. Her Basic curves, slightly awkward in her mouth, but her face is determined, her jaw set as she pushes at Jyn again. 

Jyn squints at her, her rounded nose and crooked teeth, the short forehead framed by the red scarf covering her hair. Jyn’s seen her around downstairs on occasion, scurrying in and out of the kitchens where boarders can purchase meals in the mornings and evenings. Jyn knows she’s heard her name called from behind the kitchen door but she can’t recall it for the life of her.

“Did Denic send you?” Jyn manages, too tired to put up anything resembling a fight, and giving into the order. 

The girl nods, reaching behind Jyn to move her thin pillow up against the earthen wall. She offers Jyn her small, warm hands and helps her sit upward properly, not satisfied until Jyn’s confirmed she’s not in pain. “Eat.” she says, pushing tin mug into Jyn’s empty hand. Steam rises off the surface of a dark broth inside, salty and sharp on Jyn’s tongue when she takes a sip. 

“Okay?” The girl says, and it sounds more like an order than a comfort. 

Jyn nods slowly, tin warm against her lips. “Okay. Thank you.”

The girl says something short in language Jyn doesn’t understand, but the tone is universal. A beleaguered appreciation. She gives Jyn something like a smile. 

She starts to retreat with a nod. 

“Wait,” Jyn manages before the girl disappears through the door. “What’s your name? Your name?” Jyn tries, feeling foolish. Her head is starting to clear, but she still feels waterlogged, heavy and weak. 

“Brieme.” The girl answers, pointing towards herself as though she’s not sure Jyn will understand. Jyn appreciates the gesture. She mirrors it. “Jyn.” She says, feeling reckless, small. She’s at this child’s mercy in all other respects, this feels like nothing more than a drop of water in a bucket. 

The girl nods, unimpressed, leaves Jyn to her soup and silence. 

-

Brieme comes back in the early evening, brings Jyn more broth and an orange. Jyn gives the girl half the fruit and pops loose one of the small yellow pills from the foil packet at her bedside. The girl doesn’t linger this time either and Jyn sleeps heavy after she goes, curled on her side beneath her blanket. She’d half-expected Denic to return today and feels silly for wanting the company. 

She sleeps fitfully throughout the night, wakes from odd dreams quicker than she can commit them to memory, is left with nothing more than an unsettled feeling to keep her company until she falls back to sleep. 

She cycles through a series of days in this manner. She sleeps and wakes and sees Brieme, who brings her food and prods her to take her meds, her speech still reluctant though Jyn’s beginning to suspect it has more to do with suspicion of Jyn than an inability to communicate.

By the morning of the fourth day Jyn can’t bare the sight of her four walls a second longer, leverages herself out of her bed and sets about dressing herself. Brieme helped her to the fresher the other day, had poked and jabbed Jyn until she’d allowed the girl to wash her hair under a tepid stream of water. The water ran murky with sand and dirt and blood, but Brieme hadn’t bat an eye at any of it, just wrung Jyn’s long hair dry and then weaved it into a damp braid with her slim, quick fingers. 

Jyn’s back is mottled with bruises and her side pinches when she moves too quickly, the slash dried into a jagged mounded scab that pulses hot. She’s careful when she pulls her shirt over her head, the rough weave of the tunic dragging over her skin. Still, the clean clothes feel better than lying in bed, and Jyn shrugs her jacket, mindful of her injured hand when she slides it through the sleeve. 

Outside the air stings her cheeks and feels like the most magnificent thing in the galaxy after nearly a week confined to her room. Jyn stands for a moment just outside the door of the boarding house, gets reacquainted with her bearings--the length of the street and the breadth of the roadway, the building slouched against one another looking down, the soft dim sky above—and then sets off towards the Old Market. A few of the regulars nod her way, a silent greeting, and Jyn feels steadier for it, her steps growing confident as a destination finally enters her mind. 

Brieme warned her as she found Jyn readying to leave, that there were troopers aplenty out on the street, left the comment hanging there between them with enough of a pointed look in her amber eyes to tell Jyn she shouldn’t do anything stupid. The girl’s proved an honest informant, Jyn spotting at least four pairs of troopers either stationed or marching patrol throughout the market square, double what she usually sees this early in the day. But they’re only watching, scanning the crowds with their blasters held slack in their grip. If its retribution for the night out in the desert, it doesn’t feel especially well enforced. 

(A few boxes of medicine and food, a few battered and dead soldiers. The Empire can certainly spare them. They can afford not to care. It's the affront they won't tolerate. The anger and need for justice they seek to quell.)

Chirrut certainly hasn’t been put off by the increased presence of imperial troopers out in the market. Jyn finds him in his usual place on the fringes of the eastern side of the Old Market, alms bowl set out before his bent knees. He tilts his head in her direction before Jyn makes herself know, mouth curving upward, pleased and warm. “Shouldn’t you be resting?” He asks, beckoning her closer still with a crook of his hand. Jyn scowls, tired though the short walk here has left her. 

“I’ve rested enough.” She answers, the edge in her voice reedy and thin. The concern that had loosened her tongue out in the desert has been pulverized in the days since, Jyn grinding it beneath her heel with nothing but time at her disposal to do so. For all the she knows she can trust Chirrut and Baze, and even Denic, as conspirators and accomplices, united in their need to survive under the rule of the Empire--if not in their desire to see it undone--her name, her life, is not a secret she can ever place in their hands. That isn’t a burden Jyn ever means to share again. 

(Papa had his secrets and Jyn always meant to keep her own as closely she she’s kept his all these years. Because it was the last thing she could do, the only things she can do, now that she’s come to understand that there is no way to get her father back. If he ever was alive at all. Papa is as good as dead, a ghost at her back, like Mama, like—)

“Krestel.” Chirrut says carefully, intention in his voice, though its an intention Jyn can’t pick apart for the life of her, his weathered hand grasping her uninjuried fingers. As always, Chirrut puts out an alluring calm, a haven in the maelstorm whirling in Jyn’s mind. 

“I need something to do.” Jyn responds, tired all over again. She wonders if Chirrut knows, holding her hand as he is now, if he can feel her dreams have been full of things and people she’s tried to outrun these last three years.

(In truth,Jyn is sick with loneliness, as brought down by it as she is by the wound healing in her side and it is this Chirrut feels as clearly in her as he does the kyber-heart at the center of her soul, burning brightly even now.)

“Come with me,” Chirrut says, releasing Jyn’s fingers so he can take to his feet. He picks up the empty alms bowl, slips it into the woven satchel he picks up off the floor. “We will have tea. And then you will have something to do.” 

“I was hoping for something a little more productive than drinking tea.” Jyn says, still somehow taken by surprise when Chirrut links their arms together. He winks at her before nuding her leg with the end of his staff, prompting her to walk where he directs her. 

“Shush. I see now that Baze has been an unfortunate influence on you. You should know better by now that to question my plans.”

Jyn opens her mouth to retort but Chirrut simply tugs on their joined armed and ushers them both forward. 

-

“It’s tarine,” says a hoarse, raw voice from behind the bulky mechanism of a sand filtering mask strapped to the face of the woman Chirrut had introduced as Killi Gimm. Her brown, thin fingers disappear into the folds of her red sleeves when she presses her hands together, “I’m afraid it’s all we have.” 

“Tarine tea would be very nice, thank you.” Chirrut answers, taking a seat on one of the stools Killi had produced after allowing them inside. It takes Jyn a moment to realize that she’s expected to answer as well, and she can feel her face flushing warm even as she hastily adds, “Yes, please. Tarine would be nice.” Chirrut grins at her as Killi retreats into another room and Jyn is tempted to swat at him for looking so smug at her expense. He could have mentioned where exactly he planned on bringing her for tea. 

But Jyn isn’t in any position to hit anyone, not with a set of round black eyes staring at her unblinkingly from behind a battered looking sofa. Never mind her side. 

Just beyond the room there was the distinct and recognizable sound of children at play, familiar to Jyn now after her time spent watching the pack that collected outside the garage. 

There is another woman there, Kaya, who does not wear the same red robes as her sister, her brown face free from the breathing device her sister clearly needed. She was talking with the children Jyn had only caught a glimpse of them when Killi had left Chirrut and her in, curious and intrigued by their visitors. Some had greeted Chirrut with excited calls of Master Imwe, but most had simply scurried away into another room. 

Jyn doesn’t need to ask where Chirrut had brought her. The house is larger than the place Chirrut and Baze keep, though the room they’re feels small, crammed as it is with mismatched furniture, all showing various signs of wear and tear, and there are bedrolls neatly stacked against the far wall. Enough for a barrack. 

The dark eyes watching Jyn from behind the sofa continue to stare and so Jyn holds her tongue instead of asking Chirrut why he’s brought her to an orphanage.

Killi returns with a small tray with the promised tarine tea, sets it down with a rattle just before the coughing starts. It’s only then that the black eyes previously fixed on Jyn dart away, looking at Killi as the hard, dry sound that makes Jyn’s own chest ache. Chirrut rises, his smile gone now, replaced by a furrowed worry look as he helps Killi over to an open seat. It still takes her a moment to manage anything approaching a full breath. The eyes don’t leave her until she does. Jyn pours their host a cup of tea, tries to ignore the conversation passing back and forth between Chirrut and Killi. It isn’t hers to hear. 

When she brings the cup over to Killi Chirrut has taken her unsteady hand in his, “The Force is with me, and I am with the Force.”

Killi draws another rattled breath. “And I fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it.” 

Their hands separate. Killi accepts the cup Jyn holds out to her, her eyes blinking up her, wet from the force of her coughing.

“Were you—are you a guardian too?” Jyn asks, because it seems the safest question, still trying to decipher why Chirrut has brought her here this morning. Does he mean for her to learn something, to appreciate her temporary convalescence knowing that she does not have a house full of children dependent on her or the uncertainty of recovery hanging over her head. 

“A Disciple of the Whills.” Chirrut answers, squeezing Killi’s shoulder. “One dedicated to understanding the will of the Force.”

Killi presses the release that secures the respirator to her face, eases it away carefully and sets it down besides her. It’s left a clear groove in her cheeks, cuts across the bridge of her nose in a harsh clean line. Even without it, she somehow looks like she’s wearing a mask. 

“Though it’s become hard of late to discern what the Force wills.” She placed her hand over Chirrut’s, still on her shoulder, gave him a reassuring smile that Jyn was somehow sure Chirrut could sense. “I appreciate your concern as always Master Imwe, but it’s nothing. I promise. Only dust.” 

Chirrut frowns and Jyn knows it’s not the first he’s heard that. Still he returns to his seat and Jyn gives him his own cup of tarine tea to sip from, pouring her own last. It’s bitter and unpleasant as usual, but Jyn drinks it silently, glancing back every now and again to see if their audience is still in the room. Their audience remains firmly in place. 

“There was medicine with the food and the water we brought.” Chirrut says, almost as though he was waiting for Killi to take a sip of her drink to speak. “Baze himself told me there was Respitic included, several doses. Enough to help.”

Jyn’s eyes turn from her watcher to Killi again, surprised by the smile that takes over the woman’s face. It isn’t enough to erase the weariness brought on by work and illness, but it does something to soften the tiredness in her eyes, the fear smudged around the rim of them. “And it will help.” She assures Chirrut, “We’ve already given it to the children.”

“There must be enough—”

“Enough for now.” Killi says, cutting Chirrut’s reassurance short. It brings something new to her face, her hoarse voice. Determination tough as any durasteel. “But in a week? You know as well as I do, Master Imwe that every week will bring more children but not more medicine. More and more of them cough through the night now that the Empire seems determined to mine all day and night. I can go without if it means leaving even a bit more for them.” 

Jyn stares at her, her thin face, and knows it wasn’t only medicine she was going without. Every new orphan was another stomach in need of food. Jyn stares down into her cup of tea and feels guilty for taking even this from them. Killi must have noticed because when when she speaks, her words are directed towards Jyn and not Chirrut. “You must forgive two righteous fools who’ve known each other so long they forget their manners.”

Chirrut ducks his head and like that the previous discussion is put away, stored neatly out of place. He extends his hand towards Jyn. “Forgive me, Master Gimm. This is Krestel Dawn.” 

Jyn nods, “Thank you for having me.”

Killi Gimm smiles again, her eyes warm. “Nonsense. Thank you for all you have brought us.”

Worry lances through Jyn’s belly, leaves her pinned to her seat. Killi frowns slightly, “Master Imwe betrayed no confidence, I promise you. But the Force tells tales we are not always ready to have told. My sister and I owe you a great debt Krestel Dawn.”

Jyn shakes her head, uneasy. “Please don’t.” She’s kept everything Denic’s ever given her from the robberies. Jyn sleeps in a private room and knows she’ll have a meal everyday so long as she watches her credits. It’s hard to sit with now, here. 

Killi accepts this, or perhaps just Jyn’s discomfort, and returns their conversation to safer grounds. Her and Chirrut certainly talk like two people who have known one another for a long time, and its from their conversation that Jyn learn Killi had been on the of eldest Disciples before the Empire arrived on Jedha. Kaya, Killi tells Jyn, is ten years younger than her, and it was her house that they had decided to use when the idea occurred to them to open an orphanage.

“Before the Empire came, there was never a need for any kind of real orphanage in NiJedha. The Holy City has always looked out for its own. If a child was left without guardians there was almost always family they could turn to, or a member of their community willing and able to take them in. At worst, one of the sects would open their doors to them, and a child could find food and companionship at any one of the local temples until they came of age. There was always some way and someone willing to help.” Killi tells Jyn, her respirator fixed once more on her face. The sound of her uneven, hoarse voice reminds Jyn of a trooper, barking orders out on the streets, sends a chill down her spine. She refuses to let it show on her face. “But then the decrees began. Barring first one temple and then another, until all the communities of faith were scattered and their resources stolen. The Holy City was stripped bare and its people displaced, left to scavenge for the bare necessities of life. Elders forced to work in the mines until they died and their children left alone with nowhere else to turn. Parents so desperate to escape Imperial control that they stole away and left their children behind. Perhaps they meant to come back once they found a place where they felt they could give their families a better life, but few have.” 

(“Everything I do, I do it to protect you. Say you understand.” But Jyn hadn’t. Couldn’t. Even now, a woman grown, she is only just beginning to grasp the shape of her father’s need, the urge that compelled him to extract that lie from her.)

Jyn listens to Killi until Killi must stop, her voice ground down to a whisper, and it is only then that Chirrut speaks again. “Tycho, will you come out and join us?”

Out from behind the sofa crept a small white body, but it isn’t until it’s fully emerged that Jyn realizes that what she’d taken as unblinking black eyes were actually lens affixed in the face of a mask, secured to a small Morseerian head, attached by a oxygen tube to a pressurized suit. “Tycho, how are you today?” Chirrut asks, offering the child his hand, shaking the small white gloved hand that slipped into his grip. The answer is a warped murmur that Jyn barely catches. Tycho turns their head toward Killi who nods towards Jyn. Tycho appraises her briefly and then scurries over to take a seat next to Killi. Jyn watches her stroke her hand over the child’s bare green-fleshed head, a gentle reassurance. “Tycho is very shy around new people. But he’ll warm to you, don’t worry.”

Jyn nods, unsure of how to respond. “Hello Tycho.” She says softly. She makes sure to wave with her uninjuried hand. 

-

They stay on into the afternoon, helping where they can. Jyn fixes a loose coil in one of the heating units in the room they’re sitting, something that Kaya, a former mechanic herself, hasn’t had time to get to yet. Jyn can understand the lack of time when Kaya emerges from the common room, a sobbing Twi’lek boy in her arms, looking harried and overwhelmed. “Our youngest and newest member.” Killi tells Jyn. “He’s only six. We’re still not sure what happened to him to bring him to us, but he’s been very attached to Kaya.” 

Chirrut steps into the common room with Killi to look after the children and Jyn follows after them once she’s done with the heating unit, uncomfortable being left alone as a stranger in foreign home.

The room is crowded with children, Jyn counts nearly two dozen. Many of them appear human, but there’s also another Twi’lek and a few Rodians as well. And of course Tycho, still hovering near Killi. 

“Master Imwe!” Calls a small girl, running towards Chirrut’s knees. “Is Master Malbus with you? He promised he bring me something the next time he came.” 

Chirrut bends his knees until he’s level with the girl. “I’m afraid Master Malbus was needed elsewhere. But I have brought another friend for you, Pyrene. This is Krestel.” Jyn fights to keep her expression cool, controlled, refusing in part to be intimidated by a child or else to frighten one.

“Hello.” She says, cringing at how awkwardly the word sits in her mouth. 

Pyrene looks Jyn up and down. “Hello. Are you a master too?”

Jyn shakes her head. “No, I’m just--I’m just me. Krestel.” 

Pyrene nods, apparently satisfied with Jyn’s answer. “Okay. Do you want to see my letter book? Master Gimm says I’m almost pro- _fish_ -ent.”

Jyn glances at Killi who nods at her, approving. “Um. Alright.”

-

It’s almost full dark by the time they take their leave, Jyn tired and sore even though she spent most of the afternoon sitting on one of the sagging couches looking over a dozen different letter books. Killi and Kaya gave the children strict instructions that they handle Jyn carefully after a few whispers from Chirrut, so none of them climbed atop her the way they clamoured over Chirrut, and still. 

“Was that a worthy task for you Miss Dawn?” Chirrut asks her, their arms linked together again now that they make their way back towards the Old Market. His voice is warm and pleased, and while there’s a good bit of pride reflected back at Jyn from the corner of his mouth, there’s nothing cruel to it. 

“How often do you come here?” Jyn asks, half-wondering if this is where Chirrut goes when he isn’t in the market square. 

“Not often enough.” Chirrut answers, brow furrowing. There’s regret in his voice when he says, “Killi is right, of course. Every day brings more children in need and never enough of the things they need to survive. Master Gimm and Kaya give them everything else in abundance. Attention and affection and a place they can call home again, but—”

It’s not enough, Jyn knows, never enough.

“Something is weighing heavily on you.” Chirrut says, an abrupt shift in their conversation. His weathered hand clasps her elbow, another point of contact between them, holding Jyn close. “There was not hidden motive in this visit, I promise.”

Jyn shakes her head, catches herself a second later. For all his abilities, she doesn’t think Chirrut is quite yet capable of reading her thoughts. 

“I’ve been thinking—a lot recently—about my family—how when my mother died—my father disappeared.” Jyn says, the words stilted on her tongue, a galaxy of words left unsaid in each halting stop. Jyn continues, unable to stop now. “He was still there. I mean—I know he was there. Nearby but I never, it was never like it was before. It was like he’d become someone else. Because he had to. And I know that, in a way, he did, we both did, but I—I hated him for a long time. For not giving me more.” Her eyes sting, her heart shudders inside her chest, restrained by the sudden tightness pinching her ribcage. 

Chirrut remains silent at her side. There’s space enough out here, less suffocating than her own thoughts inside her lonely room. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” It’s a whisper. Shame and guilt and childhood longing lock her voice in her throat.

She’d always known on Eadu, at the very least. Even as a little girl, angry and scared, she understood she was alive so long as Papa was. Their lives were connected. Interdependent. 

Now Jyn stands alone. (Sitting on a ship crowded with strange faces, alive, alive, while the memory of Papa lying on that ruined platform fills her head.) 

She thinks of the children back at the Gimm’s home, wonders if any of them are waiting for their families to return for them, to take them to better lives. 

The thought she’s been evading these last handful of days—trying to outrun since she came to Jedha—comes to her fully formed. She’d left the Rebels telling herself she was running towards something, towards the promise of finding Papa, of freeing him, of repaying a debt for three years of relative freedom while he remained a prisoner to Krennic. But she never had. 

Jyn had failed Papa as soon as she failed to find the trail of Saw Guerra and what had she done in the end?

She’s given up, given into the routine and the comfort of living a constant life on Jedha, as fixed as the seasons, just one more person making due under the Empire’s rule. 

The guilt of it eats at her insides like venom, leaves a bitter aftertaste on the back of her tongue. She doesn’t know how to draw it out. Perhaps she deserves to live with it. 

Chirrut’s hand closes over her forearm, squeezes hard. “Come, Baze will be back by now. He will be happy to see you on your feet again, Jyn.”

The sound of her name startles something fragile inside her, it shivers and trembles in recognition. Jyn’s been half-sure since she woke after that first morning when Denic deposited her back in her room, that she’d imagined it all. That she hadn’t been fool-hearted enough to tell near-strangers her own name. 

(Brieme hasn’t used Jyn’s real name, not once, since Jyn handed it to her, communicating with her in short words and confident hands, prodding and poking and pulling until Jyn complies.)

Chirrut’s face is unassuming, as though the shape of Jyn’s name is something already familiar, worn-smooth as a prayer stone. His hand is still warm on Jyn’s elbow, his side steady against hers. One day Jyn might understand the power Chirrut Imwe holds inside him, the bright light that makes trust take root deep inside Jyn, stubborn as a weed. 

Jyn swallows. “Will there be tarine tea?”

Chirrut’s face wrinkles in a smile. 

-

Baze’s happiness is a quiet thing, understated, warm. He takes Jyn’s shoulders in his large strong hands, studies her with his dark eyes. 

“It is good to see you again, little sister.” He says and Jyn warms further at the title, smiles before she can restrain herself. 

They eat in the front room of Chirrut and Baze’s home, sip at thin soup and cups of tarine tea. Jyn feels as though she’s taking food from Chirrut and Baze’s mouths but both insist she join them. There’s little conversation after Chirrut recounts their day at the orphanage, Baze listening with little input other than the infrequent nod or hum. 

Jyn watches them openly all the while. It had taken her a few interactions to realize it wasn’t brotherhood that united Chirrut and Baze, theirs was a different kind of love, worn-in and familiar. 

Not a mirror of one another in every way, but unified at their core, building one another up, lending strength. Jyn finds herself searching her mind for memories of Lyra and Galen, trying to find some clue of their relationship.

Jyn’s never doubted that Mama and Papa loved one enough. (Mama ran back. Mama tried to save them.) The memories are fuzzy now, blurry, part-dream. Mama kissing Papa’s whiskered cheek. Papa taking Mama’s dirtied hands when she came inside with a smile. 

Jyn wishes they’d have had more time. Time to grow old together. 

(Jyn wishes—Jyn _wants_ —)

She looks away. 

-

She returns to her room in the boarding house, lowers herself into her bed carefully and pulls her blankets around her as a tightly as she can manage, lets herself sleep in the hopes of waking without pain. 

If her dreams are full of Papa and Mama, of the Man in White, the faces of children left behind, of Cassian, only a boy, waiting, she doesn’t remember it come morning. 

-

“I see Brieme’s been earning her pay.” Denic says wryly when Jyn approaches her inside the garage. The smell of oil and rusted metal and grease is almost a comfort, and Jyn shivers away the last of the cold, breathes in. She hasn’t been here since the day before they went out to the desert. 

Brieme’s visits haven’t stopped, though she comes only at night now after Jyn returns from her day spent helping either Chirrut or Baze. She’s been to the Gimm sister’s home nearly every day, helping where she can. 

Her side has healed into a shiny jagged line, like a crack in a wall, raised under Jyn’s fingers when she carefully applies bacta gel to it. And still Denic hasn’t come. 

Jyn’s tired of waiting. 

“I may have told a few people you had an unfortunate run in a soldering tool.” Denic says jovially, though there’s something strained to the grin she sends Jyn’s way.

“Thank you.” Jyn replies, holding herself firm, feet planted in a fighting stance. The way Makkal taught her.

Denic walks around the room as though Jyn hadn’t spoken at all. Her hands are hidden in her pockets and she doesn’t look at Jyn for longer than a glance. She stops at a work bench strewn with loose parts, rummages through them aimlessly. With her back to Jyn, Denic says, “I shouldn’t have dragged you out there.” Denic swallows an abrupt consonant, and Jyn tenses, half-afraid of hearing her now name now, here. This place, with its still, stuffy air, the drone of power tools, the grease smeared coveralls and Denic’s freckled face, this room belongs as much to Krestel Dawn as it does to Jyn, moreso maybe. 

Denic doesn’t say Jyn’s name. She doesn’t call her Krestel either though. Jyn feels caught in a stalemate. 

“I wanted to go.” Jyn says looking back at Denic, studying the tense line of her shoulders. “I’m not new to it, you know that.” Jyn worries her tongue over the backs of her teeth. Her fear’s gone stale. 

“Smuggling isn’t exactly the same—” Denic starts. 

“I wasn’t a smuggler.” Jyn says without hesitation. _I was a rebel._ “You said that didn’t matter. I’m here now. I work for you. _With_ you. I want to keep working. You didn’t hurt me. You saved me. All of you. If you let me, I want to keep helping. I can do better than this. I know I can. You won’t have to worry about me.” 

Denic stares at Jyn hard. 

“Kriffing hell, you’re more like those Guardians than I thought, aren’t you?” She sounds confused. Disappointed maybe. Jyn can’t say for sure. She won’t apologize for it. 

_No, not a guardian._ Jyn offers Denic a small, honest grin. _I’m something else._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Killi and Kaya Gimm and their orphanage belong to Greg Rucka, and were featured in the book _The Guardians of the Whills_. Much of Killi and Chirrut's dialog was heavily influenced by the book. All credit goes there. 
> 
> Thanks friends!


	25. Chapter 25

Baze helps Jyn lift the grate off the ventilation unit affixed to the side of the Gimm’s house. Kaya Grimm ducks down as soon as the grate is clear, begins to pull the old, overused filters out of their slots, dust and sand caked on so thick they look more like baked mud slabs than filters. 

The new filters won’t keep out enough of the sand to help Killi breathe without the portable filtration unit she wears, but it should help some of the children whose own breathing hasn’t worsened to that point. 

At least Jyn hopes they will. 

They haven’t been able to make another supply run since that first night Jyn joined them in the desert, Denic’s source warning them off trying until some of the additional security added to the Imperial convoys lessens. 

But that was over a month ago now and Jyn knows that no matter how carefully the Gimms have been rationing there’s no way they haven’t run dangerously low on everything Chirrut and Baze last brought them. 

Helping like this, lending a hand around the house and bringing whatever spare part she can pick up at the garage, it doesn’t feel like enough. 

But it’s all any of them are able to do until they decide it’s safe enough to go after another Imperial drop.

Not that its ever safe. 

For now there is this, helping out around the Gimm house as best they can, as much as they can.

Afterward Kaya returns to the front room where the majority of the children reside, working in their letter books. Baze goes to the kitchen to help Killi with the evening meal. Jyn isn’t entirely sure where she should go, even though it’s far from her first time lending a hand here. The children don’t seem to mind her presence, but Jyn feels slightly uncomfortable around them, their small bodies and large eyes, the defenseless of them. It doesn’t seem fair to her that people so small and blameless should suffer so much at the hands of their elders.

Jyn remembers being that small, remembers how ardently she hated the smallest suggestion of pity. These children don’t need her pity. Pity won’t feed them or cure their ailments.

”Always so troubled.” Chirrut chides, walking stick tapping against the stone as he comes towards her. Jyn pivots towards him, still leaning against the side of the house, standing in the narrow strip of duracrete that acts as a backyard to the Gimm’s home. 

”Not troubled, thinking.” Jyn says, arms crossed over her chest. Chirrut tips his head in a deferential manner, comes to a stop besides Jyn.

“It’s going to snow.” Chirrut announces tipping his head skyward. Jyn looks upward at the cloudless sky, pale blue and devoid of clouds. 

“Here?” Jyn asks, incredulous. She’s been on Jedha for three years, nearly four now and she’s never seen it snow once. Even rain is sparse on this moon. 

Chirrut nods, bumps his shoulder against Jyn’s. “There’s change in the air, my friend. Mark my words. It’ll be soon.”

Jyn chews on the corner of her lip. Snow or no snow, she hopes it’s change for the better. 

-

Haned’s is crowded tonight. Haned’s is always crowded. 

If there is one thing Jyn has come to know about the way the galaxy works it’s this: For all the shortage of coin and goods, there will always be a watering hole of questionable repute where individuals can try to drown their burdens in drink or change their luck at a game table. There’s a number of them in the city of NiJedha but the one Denic prefers and Jyn sparingly visits is Haned’s. 

Haned runs the establishment out of what was once a library, though all the shelves have been vacated of their residents and the windows boarded over against the possibility of a street attack. It attracts from all walks of NiJedhan life and Jyn’s shared a drink or two with Baze here since they moved from professional collaborators to whatever it is they are now. Friends perhaps, Jyn allows. The memory of Baze’s voice in the thick warmth of that dimly lit room, the word _Jyn_ branded into Jyn’s heart as deeply as the words _little sister_ in a way that would be tempting to pull apart if only to find what lies in the middle of it. 

(She is Jyn now, again, behind closed doors and in deep confidences, though Denic still refers to her almost exclusively as Dawn in their conversations. Jyn didn’t know how much she missed the sound of it until now that she has it again, and it still leaves her winded, the shocking thrill of being herself.)

The night is cold. Winter nights always are and Jyn is sitting at a table in the corner, still nursing her drink though Baze took his leave nearly half an hour ago, though he was reluctant to leave her alone. “I can handle myself, don’t worry.” Jyn told him, mouth turning upward in a grin. “I don’t doubt it.” Baze answered, concern still deepening the lines around his eyes, but he’d shaken his head all the same, bid her good night. 

She watches the room, enjoys it, picking up on familiar faces and strangers alike, cataloguing their movements, their actions, picking up their words. So many lives lived all around her and Jyn will only ever have a glimpse of them. She doesn’t know where this nostalgia comes from, this soft earthen feeling in the pit of her belly. 

(Jyn wishes—Jyn _wants_ —)

Her fingers squeeze around her cup so hard she’s surprised the tin doesn’t dent under her grip. Her heart, her heart, Jyn can feel it writhing in her belly, can feel each thundering throb of it in her throat. 

_It isn’t—there’s no way—_

Jyn’s eyes dart back across the crowd. He’s there. He’s still there. 

Jyn is not unfamiliar with ghosts. She sees them all the time. She sees her mother in the pilgrims that gather in the corners of the Old Shadows, murmuring their prayers in defiance of Imperial orders. She sees her father staring back at her from the mirror in her borrowed room, in her dreams where he whispers _Stardust_ and asks her to understand.

(“Everything I do, I do it to protect you.”)

She sees the ghosts that Chirrut welcomes and the ghosts that Baze would turn away out of anger. Jyn can even see the ghosts of old regrets that Denic wears around her shoulders like a jacket, as familiar in cut as the ones Jyn carries on her own. 

Jyn is not unfamiliar with ghosts.

And still, looking at him, she feels—

-

There’s a memory Jyn toyed with in the days she was left to her own devices, weary and alone. 

Cassian leaning against her on the grounds of the forest, the thick trees of Dantooine offering them what shelter they could. Cassian’s cold fingers wrapped around her wrist, holding her arm against his chest, Jyn’s heart rattling in her ears as loudly as Cassian’s uneven breathing. She remembers the sharp rise of his shoulder under her cheek, her body trying to find purchase against the harsh line of his. She remembers how badly she’d missed him all those months he was gone. 

“You’re the only family I have left.” Cassian said to her a lifetime ago, words quiet and small in the hull of a ship and if Jyn could have said anything in return she would have answered, “You’re my family too.” Jyn could have said, “I love you too.” As though the two were interchangeable. 

They had been once. 

It isn’t so clear anymore. She’d hated him. She had. That wasn’t a lie. She could have killed him in the U-wing the day he told her the truth. She could have killed him in any of the months that followed. She could have. She knows she could have. 

Jyn toyed with the memory the way a child sneaks time with a trinket they know they’re not meant to touch. She expected then the familiar rush of anger, the one she’s nursed for so long, but it never came. The memories weren’t what they once were but the scalding fury was gone, dimmed into something else, something more like the resigned disappointment, the aching sadness memories of Papa and Mama bring to mind. 

She wondered when her memories of Cassian lost their brittle edge, if it was the sight of all those helpless faces peering at her at the Gimm's home, or Brieme's amber eyes ordering Jyn to eat, the thought that Cassian had been so small once, looking to his elders to show him the way. 

-

The air outside Haned’s is bitter. Behind her, countless conversations carry on, buzz in her ears and Jyn wishes it were enough to drown out the drone in her own head, an incredulous silence that only seems to grow. It swells inside her like infected tissue, tender and sore. 

She lurches away from the entryway, anyone watching might confuse her for drunk if they saw her now, near-stumbling in the dark. She doesn’t know where she’s going, but instinct tells her to run, to get away, to put as much distance between them as she can.

Jyn goes.

She finds herself in the Old Shadows before she knows it, the hollow bones of the former temple staring down at her in the dark. 

Her skin prickles with more than cold, and Jyn sits down hard on the temple steps. Of all things, she wants to cry. That alone makes her angry. 

Jyn lets her head sag forward, heavy, pained. Tired. Her body folds forward, forearms braced against the tops of her thighs. Jyn breathes in deep, the air so cold it nearly burns inside her chest. 

What to do, Jyn’s thoughts fragment around that single question. _What do I do?_

She can go to the port and jump on a ship. Any ship. She isn’t creditless. Jyn can start again. 

_But--_

Footsteps. Too light to be a trooper. These are cautious, slow. Jyn takes another breath. Her back aches from how tightly her muscles coil all at once. 

Jyn prays, asks her mother and the Force and whatever benign star might be listening that whoever it is approaching her walks pass, that it’s only paranoia and life-long bad luck that makes her leap to a conclusion that feels inevitable but should by all right be impossible. 

_What are the odds?_

Jyn looks up. She wants to laugh. She never wants to think about odds again. 

The man who appears before her is no stranger, no matter the years that lie between them and the changes they’ve brought. Jyn would know him anywhere, she realizes, a truth that unfurls like a long lowered standard. He looks taller still, face sharper, the shadows sliced over the severity of his cheeks, his jaw, the crooked line of his nose. He looks _old_ , lines etched around his eyes as deeply as any scar. 

Jyn stares up at him. She can’t find her voice. 

Cassian Andor raises a hand, shows his empty palm. Jyn’s throat clenches hard. His eyes are fixed on her face. 

“Have you killed my father?” Jyn asks, the question barbed as it rises in her throat. She half-expects her lips to bleed, shaping the words. But it’s the only words she can pry loose, everything else stuck in her chest without this one doubt settled. 

Papa’s been lost to Jyn for so long, as good as dead in some ways, perhaps in all the ways that someone can be lost, but the thought of him has been a millstone around Jyn’s neck, she needs an answer. 

Cassian breathes out. His breath hangs in a silver mist in front of his lips, dissipates into nothing. She wishes she could steal something, a secret, a shadow, from the lines of his face, the nearly invisible creasing around his mouth as he stares at her. Cassian. A living ghost. Jyn breathes in. Waits. 

“No.” He says, as blunt and nearly as brutal as the butt of a blaster bearing down against her windpipe.

Jyn squeezes her hands around her kneecaps, tries to excavate the hidden depths of his response. _Because you couldn’t or you wouldn’t?_ Jyn doesn’t ask, still searching his face, searching, searching, trying to find a chink in the impenetrable mask of neutrality he still wears so well. 

_What difference does that make now?_ Jyn asks herself, catching Cassian’s eyes. Those at least are not impassive. But what they hold for her, Jyn doesn’t know.

She resigns herself to never knowing the answer. Maybe that’s answer enough. It wouldn’t matter, she knows. Not to her. 

Cassian shifts, just barely, and Jyn steels herself the way she would for a blow, holds herself steady and knows Cassian is looking for a way in just as Jyn is, feels somehow at a disadvantage though he looked as surprised as Jyn felt when he spotted her at Haned’s. 

Cassian opens his mouth, closes it, lips pressed stiff. It’s disarming, and Jyn wonders if it’s a calculation, some ploy to loosen her tongue further. But his eyes rove her face hungrily and Jyn feels it, like new ground underfoot, catching her midfall. 

(“You’re the only family I have left.”)

It makes something hot clench around her heart, gone mad behind her ribs, the girl that longed for his attention, his devotion, still too much the lonely child locked in a room, waiting at the bottom of a cave. 

She’s still that child, Force help her, she’ll always be that child. And Cassian, for all his sins, will always be the boy who stepped towards her, who caught her in his arms aboard the Farragut, who laughed into her hair when he saw her again. Cassian Andor. The shape of his name sits like a pleasant weight at the back of her tongue. 

It’s that part of herself that Jyn blames for the question that slips pass her lips, that silly girl who hoped he’d have answers even when she knew she couldn’t trust what he had to tell her. 

“Do you think he’s alive?” 

Jyn wishes the words were sharper, wishes her voice could turn to the edge of a vibroblade. As it is, wavering, thin, Jyn thinks the only person it’s likely to hurt is her. 

Cassian shakes his head and Jyn’s heart plummets, drops to the bottom of her belly, shrinks into itself. His eyes widen and his knees bend, his feet shuffle forward, the distance between them closing just that much more. He catches himself, stops, holds his arms stiff at his sides. “I mean—I don’t know. I don’t—there hasn’t been any news—not about him—” He stops himself and there’s a war playing out across his features. He looks away. 

Jyn’s glad for the reprieve. 

Her father’s face emerges in her memory, then sinks away, like flotsam caught in the surf and drowned anew. Jyn blinks the heat from her eyes. She refuses to cry. 

_Papa’s been dead a long time_ , Jyn tells herself. Maybe if she says it enough it’ll mean something. 

“I’m sorry.” Cassian says, eyes cast off to the side, peering into a sliver of darkness between two of the buildings adjoined to the Old Temple. Jyn’s face is numb. Her heart pushes cold through her veins. The words are so small, too small to fill the cavern of Jyn’s chest. 

(Her mother’s necklace flares hot against her skin and Jyn doesn’t know if it’s responding to the Old Shadows or Cassian’s voice. If it’s humming in tune to Jyn’s pulse, the flutter of it shivering across the skin at her throat.)

“It isn’t enough.” Cassian adds, hands hidden in his pockets, but Jyn imagines they’re held as tightly as her own, if the line of his shoulders is anything to go by. 

“No.” Jyn answers, “It isn’t.”

Cassian looks at her then, and Jyn thinks she must imagine it, the relief she sees in his own face at the words. 

-

Jyn stays.

Whatever force it was that carried her out of Haned’s at the sight of him is gone, and its place is a dead weight, heavy as sandbags, holding her down. 

The danger of being absorbed into Cassian’s orbit is as real as ever, she can’t allow it to happen now, but Jyn doesn’t know how to move away. Not yet. 

Cassian seems as lost, shifting uneasily and then finally jerking an unsteady hand in Jyn’s direction, motioning towards the stone step at Jyn’s side. Jyn gives him no response and Cassian comes another fraction closer, then another, Jyn watching him warily all the while. He sits, leaves a gulf of space between them but Jyn feels as though he were close enough for her to feel the heat off his skin. Or maybe it’s just her own blood stirring, rushing to the surface of her skin, leaving her flushed with equal parts fear and anticipation. 

She’d never thought they’d be even this close again. Now she feels foolish for not preparing better. Cassian must have, he could always see the bigger picture with far more clarity. He must have prepared for every possibility. 

Cassian exhales and Jyn breathes in. He doesn’t speak and Jyn feels the knot in her throat loosen and tighten in uneasy intervals. 

They carry on like that for a time, resigned to their brittle silence, breathing out of sync in the cold winter night. 

The urge to cry has softened into something else, and Jyn feels small, feels like a girl of sixteen, huddled into herself aboard a dingy shuttle. 

(She hadn’t trusted him then either. Had she known? For all that Jyn swore to herself she’d be careful, she’d never been careful enough. She loved him. She loved him. She—)

Cassian takes another breath. Long. Helpless. “So, this is Jedha.” 

Jyn chews her mouth. Her lips, so prone to bleeding in the cold before Baze gifted her with a small tin of salve, tingle, taste faintly of tarine. “What’s left of it.” She digs the heel of her left foot into the stone, scrapes sand back and forth. She should move. She should run. But Cassian is here and Jyn is frozen. The kyber crystal burns against her skin, the heat of it sinking straight through flesh and sinew and bone, stinging the soft muscle of her heart. 

(“The strongest stars have hearts of kyber.” What of Cassian’s heart? What was it made of?)

“What are you doing here?”

There’s a pause before Cassian answers. “Work.” A galaxy contained in a single word, and Jyn’s mouth twists ruefully. 

“Not here for me, then.” It’s hard to say what causes the bitterness to flake off her voice, but it collects on the backs of her teeth. It seems ridiculous now that she gives the thought room to grow. Draven would never waste such a valuable asset searching for a runaway like Jyn.

“No.” Cassian says, abrupt and forceful, “No, I never thought—” He stops. He draws another breath. Sharp. Uneasy. “I know why you left. I never tried—”

Jyn’s breath catches in her throat. The old daydream she cared for in secret long ago comes back to her, faint and dim though it always was—will always be—and she almost closes her eyes to try and forget it. 

_Would you have come with me if I’d asked?_ Jyn wonders for the first time in years. But the answer’s never changed.

(“You’re the only family I have left.”)

Cassian looks at her, Jyn catches the turn of his head out of the corner of her eye. She keeps her eyes studiously ahead. The empty street. The still night. 

Somewhere in the distance a speeder whirrs away. An animal yowls.

“I haven’t come here to bother you. I promise—if that means anything now. I think it did once. Please let it mean something now. I won’t get in your way.” 

Cassian reaches for her, slowly, but its enough to force Jyn’s gaze. She turns, but doesn’t meet Cassian’s eye, looks instead at the slip of flimsi folded between his fingertips. 

“I can’t say how long I’ll be here, but I have a feeling. If you need something, anything, you can find me here. Ask for Fulcrum.” 

Jyn reaches for the filmsi, takes it from Cassian’s hold with fingers gone red from the cold. The paper is thin, gritty, the information written on it a dangerous thing for a spy to have. 

She doesn’t unfold it, sticks into her pocket without a second glance at it. Cassian doesn’t wait for Jyn to reciprocate with any kind of contact information of her own. He unfolds himself, takes to his feet silently. Jyn follows the long, lean line of his body, razon-thin even now. 

Cassian stares down at her. He looks as though he wants to say something more, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t leave either. 

Jyn clenches her teeth. 

The future unfolds before her eyes as clearly as a holo. She won’t contact him, no matter what he’s calling himself. Even if the old hatred isn’t what it once was, she knows she’ll never ask a thing from him. 

She’ll never see Cassian again. 

This is an ending. One she never looked for but is being granted all the same. 

Another chance perhaps, Chirrut might say as much, an opportunity. 

(“You’re the only family I have left.” _Open your mouth,_ Jyn thinks, eyes pressed shut, _open your mouth and tell him. Say something say something—_

But Jyn says nothing.)

She takes to her own feet, the cold from the stone step rising with her, sunk deep into her bones. She descends, steps around him, and Cassian pivots, tracks her movements in a slow rotation. 

“Goodbye.” Jyn says and finds that she means it as she never has before. 

“Jy—” Cassian starts but she can’t listen now, can’t let him have another word. This is the end, once and for all, and it has to be done right. 

A ghost finally put to rest. 

Jyn walks away, can feel his eyes on her back long after she’s turned a corner and broken into a run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws self down on floor*
> 
> GUYS _GUYS_ this chapter has been in the works almost since chapter 17 when we bid goodbye to our beloved space son, Cassian Andor. I hoped it was worth the long wait. 
> 
> I added the chapter count as estimated from what I have now, but it isn't fixed, just so you know. 
> 
> Bless all you sweet angels, I hope you have a great week :-)


	26. Chapter 26

She doesn’t sleep that night. 

She walks in circles around the streets, eyes cast over her shoulders, jumping at every shadow and whisper the way a child recoils from the dark. She nearly runs into troopers on patrol in her carelessness, squeezes into a crack that barely passes for an alleyway and holds her breath, waiting for them to pass. Stillness turns the sweat on her skin cold, and Jyn shivers, rests her head against the sand-dusted stone in front of her. 

She breathes in. 

The thought of leaving clamors still inside her head, like a caged animal, refusing to be ignored. 

Cassian isn’t after her, he said as much, and against all better judgement Jyn believes him. 

Jyn could slip off Jedha and disappear again, make good on the promise to never see him again. Ensure it. 

But Jyn already knows she can’t. As hard as it was to leave Makkal—Makkal, Amadna, her serious face and steel grey eyes, her grin as severe as the straight line of her spine, stars, is she alive? Jyn didn’t ask, didn’t even think to ask, and the failure of it coats her tongue, metallic and thick—Jyn knows leaving Jedha is impossible. 

Brown, orange, golden Jedha with it’s shifting sand and freezing nights, it’s blistering weeks and pale, cloudless skies, the infinite stars keeping vigil over its ruined temples. A people keeping the faith even as the Empire bears down on them. 

Jedha. Glorious even now, beautiful in its demise. Alive still. 

Her home not because of the four walls she keeps for herself, the grubby foiled mirror where Jyn studies her face sometimes still and the window overlooking the roofs of the buildings nearby, but because of who welcomed her. 

Denic and Chirrut and Baze.

(“Good night, little sister.” Baze said only hours ago, smile lingering at the corner of his mouth as he took his leave. Jyn had smiled into her cup, still thrilled by the title, everything it promised without her ever having to ask for it. A gift given to her freely and greedily accepted, clutched close from the first moment she realized what was being offered.)

Even the Gimms and the haven they’ve built, the countless faces Jyn knows by sight if not by name, all of them a part of Jyn’s life now. 

She can’t leave any of it. Doesn’t want to. 

(Jyn wants. It’s the oldest memory she has, the deepest trenches in her bones bear the mark of it all over. Jyn _wants_.)

She breathes out.

Cassian said he wouldn’t get in her way. Went so far as to leave a trail back to him, dangerous and stupid as it is, just in case Jyn needs to find him.

He promised he wasn’t here to bother her. 

Jyn closes her eyes, forces her breath steady.

Force help her. She believes that too.

-

Jyn destroys the slip of filmsi Cassian gave her but not before she reads it. Her hands don’t shake as she unfolds it, thumbs rubbing the paper flat, cautious even in the confines of her room, glancing at the corners like a trooper might appear without notice and rip it right out of her grasp. It’s written in grease pencil, probably nicked off someone at Haned’s along with the filmsi, and Jyn studies the line of Cassian’s writing, each slant and loop, the way someone else might study a portrait.

She doesn’t consider keeping it, knows beyond any shadow of a doubt how stupid it would be to leave a trace of him in her room. Never mind the possibility of discovery. It would be like inviting the specter of him to linger. A token, a tribute, as heavy as the kyber she wears around her neck. Still, she runs the side of her pinkie over the crooked line of writing, smudges the letters, leaves a thin grease smear trailing after like ripples on a lake. Jyn remembers touching the mountain ridge of his knuckles once on Dantooine, when they were yellowed with old bruises, remembers the hard line of his jaw against her palm, the soft fall of his hair shifting through her clumsy fingers, as though the words smudged on the scrap of paper were a combination, a key unlocking the heavy weighted doors Jyn has set in place to keep all memories of Cassian away. 

She ignites the filmsi on the stone ledge of her window, watches as it catches flame, flares into a bright point before it darkens, curls into itself and withers into chalky ash. 

Jyn can still see the message across the backs of her eyelids as clearly as she can the grease smears on her fingers. 

-

“You’re looking for someone.” Chirrut says pleasantly, knocking his knee against Jyn’s. They’re seated side by side at Ne’Za’s counter, waiting for Baze to appear. It isn’t unheard of for Chirrut and Baze to arrive apart, so Jyn doesn’t think much of it, ignores the nagging worry that insists Cassian has something to do with this. 

Not that Jyn’s seen him, or suspected him being near, not once since that night in the Old Shadows. It seems he’s kept his word. 

It’s Jyn who can’t seem to keep hers, pulling herself away from the thought of him more often she’s comfortable admitting, not even to herself. 

“Of course I am.” Jyn replies, craning her head to the other side to peer down the opposite end of the street. “I’m looking for Baze.”

“He’s coming.” Chirrut answers confidently, “But that’s not what you’re waiting for.”

Jyn bites her lip. She imagines what she might say, what she could tell Chirrut without giving away more than is safe. He’s always seemed to know more than Jyn’s let on and she wonders if she’d even be surprised anymore if he confessed to knowing the truth of her life already. It’s an uncomfortable thought for more than one reason, made worse by the fact that Jyn no longer feels the blind unyielding terror she once did at the thought of being known. 

“Can you really see the future?” Jyn asks instead, recalling Chirrut’s boast from long ago, wishing desperately for it to be true, wants Chirrut to tell her she did right walking away from Cassian that night. 

“We cannot change the direction of the wind, nor can we afford to be blown whichever way it so chooses.” 

Chirrut face is bright with kindness, with calm, the surety Jyn’s come to expect in him radiating in his voice as he speaks. 

Jyn hangs her head, unsure whether to sigh or laugh. It’s moments like this when she sympathizes most with Baze, his eternally beleaguered sighs when Chirrut decides to speak in riddles. “Is that a yes or a no? I can never tell with you.” 

Chirrut leans closer, rests his head briefly against Jyn’s. When he speaks again it’s in a conspirator’s whisper, and Jyn strains her ears to hear every word he has to say. “We act; we decide; and we are acted upon. Our paths have been paved by those who came before us, Jyn, but the choice of which path to walk is ours to decide. There is no one future in the Force, my dear, only many possibilities from which we make our way.” He grins, and there’s something so boyish to his expression, as though he weren’t a man whose life has been ripped apart by sacrifice and war. 

“And which paths do I have to choose from?” Jyn asks, dissatisfaction cloying, turning her stomach in knots. She swallows, unhappy, only faintly comforted when Chirrut straightens again, moving away from her. 

Chirrut’s laugh disrupts her dark mood, long and loud as it is. He earns himself a hard look from Ne’za, not that Chirrut can tell. Jyn doesn’t think he’d care even if he could. “The blind cannot ask the blind to lead them.” He touches Jyn’s hand, unseeing gaze gone soft with affection. “You know your own way best. Do not doubt it now.”

“Oh good,” Baze’s deep voice comes from over Jyn’s shoulder, and he squeezes himself onto a stool beside her, his large bulk closing at the wind sweeping in at her side. “I see I’ve arrived just in time to interrupt whatever poor advice he’s giving you.”

“Those rich in the Force cannot give poor advice, Baze Malbus.” Chirrut harrumphs, though there’s nothing but teasing warmth to his tone. 

Jyn catches Baze’s eye, shakes her head slightly at his worried look. She’s fine. Or she will be. She has to be. 

“What kept you so long, we’re starving.”

-

Winter worsens in a way that tells Jyn that it is almost at it’s end. 

It does, finally, snow, just as Chirrut promised Jyn it would. It falls in flurries and drifts, large white flakes that collect on the sand and stone below and remind Jyn of salt turned to foam on the cragged shores of Lah’mu. 

Denic doesn’t seem nearly as impressed by the stuff as Jyn herself feels, standing up on the roof of the garage, head tipped towards the sky, blinking as snowflakes drift into her eyes. She’s still wearing her goggles, her eyes magnified ridiculously behind the lenses, scowling at the grey clouds gathered overhead. 

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those infants who thinks this stuff is magic.” She says dourly, freckled nose going immediately pink in the cold. 

Jyn shakes her head. “Haven’t got an opinion on it really. This is the first I’ve seen it.”

(“I’ll take you someday. Somewhere you can see snow.” He said it so quietly Jyn would always wonder if he meant to say it at all. His eyes were softer then, the sadness tempered by a fondness so clear Jyn’s heart stuttered to a stop. She doesn’t think it ever relearned all the proper steps after.)

Denic frowns, “Well take it from me. It’s horrible. Just a bunch of ice dropping on you and making it difficult to walk. My nan used to say—” Denic stops short. Her scowl deepens. She yanks her jacket collar higher. 

“I’m going inside.”

Jyn stands outside a while longer, jacket wrapped tight around her frame. She wonders if, somewhere in NiJedha, Cassian Andor is thinking of home.

-

Jyn’s pack is heavy. It knocks against her back as she runs. 

It’s hard to keep quiet, fear chokes the air in her lungs, stitches her ribs tight around every breath. In her head she sees Mama fall over and over again, but Jyn is too scared to even cry. Her feet stick in the muddy soil and Jyn slips, falls hard under the weight of her pack. She bites her cheek to keep from yelping in pain, picks herself up with skinned palms, and pushes herself to standing. Jyn runs, keeps running, never looking back. Mama and Papa said she must not stop.

The cave looms within sight and Jyn pushes her legs to run faster. Her small chest heaves and her heart pumps so hard she thinks it’ll explode, thinks she’ll die for lack of air–Mama lifts her arm and she falls, disappears into the tall grass like she was never there at all–but she doesn’t.

Jyn reaches the mouth of the cave and slips into the damp darkness within, back, back finds the hatch Mama and Papa made to keep them all safe. She’s never been down there alone, the dark deeper and darker and colder than before now that it's just Jyn crawling down the ladder, closing the heavy hatch after her, encasing herself in darkness.

Quiet, quiet, only Jyn’s breath panting in the dark and Jyn presses her dirty palm against her mouth to muffle the sound of it, but it only makes her heart beating in her ears grow even louder. They’ll hear it, Jyn knows, already knows, they’ll hear it and soon there’ll be death masks peering down at her, black-gloved hands pulling her up and she’ll be carried, kicking and snarling back to the Ghost, the man in white, to Papa in his grief, to Mama, gone still, gone silent, to Mama erased as though she’d never been—

The world shakes, dirt and stone falling around Jyn in clumps, it shakes and shakes and crumbles and Jyn screams—

-

There are troopers everywhere, pointing their blasters to keep the crowds at bay, threatening to shoot anyone who so much as attempts move. Night is still thick, but even the brightest stars are obscured by the thick smoke rising in the dark, the great plumes of dust and embers gone up from the explosion site. In front of them the structure that was once an Imperial guard post continues to burn, cracks and spits angry, but the troopers keep their weapons trained on the crowds rather than turn their back to try and put it out. 

Somewhere behind Jyn a child begins to cry. Someone else shushes it forcefully but to no avail.

Questions begin being shouted at the onlookers, all close enough to the site of the explosion to potentially be witnesses, though most of them have been dragged from their beds like Jyn, shivering in her night clothes with only her jacket on to ward off the cold. Her feet throb inside her boots, so cold the skin feels as though its burning off the muscle. They hadn’t even given her time to find socks. 

“If anyone of you knows something or saw something now is the time to speak.” The modulated voice the trooper at the head of the guard shouts, but no one seems to be listening to him, most eyes still locked on the burning skeleton of the guard post, or else the blasters raised in the troopers’ hands. 

Attacks aren’t unheard of on Jedha and Jyn feels more irritation than fear, cold and tired, being forced to stand as though this type of thing were a first-time occurrence.

The troopers are still out in droves by the time Jyn heads out for the garage.

She’s stopped by two different patrols and asked to show her scan docs, which she produces quickly and without a fight. She’s not afraid as the trooper examine them, knows her documents are good enough to pass muster. Jyn’s updated them twice since she first made them back on Dantooine, knows they’re as good as flawless now.

The Old Market has been slowed to a crawl and by the time she breaks through she’s definitely late and she quickens her pace without running, knows that would attract unwanted attention. All of it for nothing apparently, as the front door to the garage is still secured shut. That more than anything else she’s encountered since an explosion shook her out sleep in the middle of the night scares her. Denic has always been here, even when she was missing the skin on her hands, she came in on time. 

A spike of fear shoots through her navel and Jyn glances down the nearly empty street, waiting for a garrison of soldiers to close in. But there’s no one, nothing, just the morning coming on, the air still filled with last night’s ash.

The wind blows cold, cutting Jyn to the bone, and she shudders down to her boots. She wonders how out of the question it would be to attempt scaling up to the roof, is fairly sure she could force the door open.

But Denic hasn’t given her access to the garage for a reason and today doesn’t feel like a day to tempt fate by breaking into a place. Instead Jyn sits on the side of the road and waits, the knot in her stomach growing tighter every passing minute.

Jyn hates waiting.

It feels like an eternity has slipped by the time Denic finally rounds the far corner and strides towards the garage door, harried and flushed, arms crossed stiffly over her chest. “Kriffing hell, I must have passed at least a dozen check points getting here.” She pants, breath misting white as she speaks. She doesn’t wait for Jyn to answer, moves right on over to the door and gets it opened. 

Jyn scrambles after her, frozen stiff, joints protesting her rapid rise, but it’s a better pain that sitting still a moment longer. The garage has never felt like a more glorious reprieve, and Jyn makes sure to latch the door shut behind them to keep it that way. Her teeth chatter as she strips off her jacket and scarf to shove on her rough canvas jumpsuit. It seems to only trap the cold against her skin. She’s tempted to throw her jacket back on over it, but decides to amble deeper into the garage towards Denic, whose tinkering with the heating unit, turning up higher than they usually risk. Her hands are cracked with cold when she colds them towards the grate and Jyn follows suit, dropping into a crouch, trying to absorb what heat she can. 

“All this over a fire?” Jyn wonders aloud, and the look Denic sends her is nothing short of skewering. “An entire supply cache isn’t exactly small.”

“What are you talking about? It was barely a shed.”

“I’m talking about the outpost at the western edge of the city—”

“Last night?” Jyn asks, incredulous, “Someone lit up that guard shed down the street from Trino’s. They pulled the whole neighborhood out of their beds.”

Denic’s eyebrows climb up her forehead. “Well while that was happening someone also decided to blow up a fully stocked supply cache.” She blows out a hard breath, “Honestly, I thought it might have been you ‘til just now.” 

Jyn shakes her head, still somewhat caught unawares by Denic’s news. “Those supplies are no good to us blown to pieces.”

Denic shrugs, but there’s nothing easy to the motion, brow still dark with worry. “Well, guess that at least helps clear up the mystery of what’s got them all up in arms this morning. Two different attacks against the great empire, all in one night? Shakes me up too.”

Except that it isn’t just two attacks during a single night. It’s three. 

“A convoy on its way to the ship port on the eastern side of the messa.” Baze tells Jyn that night. Chirrut hadn’t been in the Old Market today so Jyn came in search of him at his home, waited outside the door until Baze arrived. Chirrut isn’t back yet and that worries Jyn too, uneasy at the thought that he’s out there tonight with all those troopers walking around looking for someone to blame. 

“Are you sure?” Jyn asks, body heavy with a tension she doesn’t know how to unwind. It fizzes at the back of her mind, makes her mouth dry. An old fear rises up her spine, inflames the nerves within. 

“I saw the remains with my own eyes.” Baze’s mouth is a grim line but there’s something in his eyes, a light that looks too familiar to Jyn. “There have been insurgents before, scattered, nothing coordinated or especially strategic about them. This is—an attack on this scale has been unheard of on Jedha for more than a decade.” 

He speaks with the same kind of fervor with which Cassian used to speak about the Rebellion, about bringing an end to the Empire—and there's the dead weight of realization forming heavy in Jyn's belly, a lump of ice burning her from the inside out. 

The front door slides open and both Baze and Jyn flinch, caught unaware. Jyn’s hand flies to the blaster hidden in the lining of her jacket, Baze for cannon resting near the wall. But it’s no threat, only Chirrut steping through, robes covered in soot and dust, mud caked along the hem. His face is capped with cold and his expression joyless. 

“The orphanage has been raided.” He says without preamble. “A squadron tore through the entire neighborhood. They said they’d found contraband goods within—”

“What of the Gimms and the children?” Baze asks, sounding stricken. Jyn’s stomach lurches, empty as it is, fear so concrete she thinks she’ll double over in an effort to alleviate it. 

“They’ve relocated. Master Gimm still has friends in this city.” Chirrut says, though there’s no relief in the words. “Kaya has taken a group with her to the Ednards’ home and Saaja has taken in the others. Master Gimm says they’ll have to look for a more long term solution but for now she’s just grateful the stormtroopers didn’t press her for more information about how she’d acquired stolen Imperial goods.”

“Grateful?” Baze asks flatly, shaking his dark head. “Grateful for the simple courtesy of not being thrown in jail by thieves and murders? Grateful for being left without a home after dedicating her life to helping others?”

Chirrut turns towards Baze, frowning, “Grateful she can continue to help her charges. A hard task for one jailed or killed, don't you think.”

Baze merely scowls and Jyn wants to flee the room, their anger, the fear choking her. She hadn’t thought of the Gimms this morning, hadn’t considered what might happen to them.

Chirrut wipes at his face. “The Empire will retaliate the only way it knows how.” He says to the room, and Jyn clenches her fists, sick with dread. 

“I have to go.” She chokes out, feeling all at once like an intruder. In their home, their lives. 

“I will walk with you.” Baze says firmly, already moving to don the red armor plates. 

“No.”

Chirrut’s unseeing eyes are fixed in Jyn’s direction, mouth pressed thin. Jyn’s skin prickles, unnerved, knows she needs to leave before he puts together the threads of her intentions. 

“No, that’s not necessary.” She moves towards the door. “I’ll see you soon.”

She doesn’t wait for them to bid her farewell before she’s slipping back out into the city night, the air still choked with fear. 

-

Jyn doesn’t need a piece of filmsi to know where she means to go. The address is emblazed in her mind, her feet know the way. 

Another boarding house, further out from the Old Market than Trino’s. From the outside it looks fit to fall over, as though it itself were the sight of an attack already. The sight doesn’t deter her though and she walks through the door. The first floor is made up a tapcafe, dirty and grimy, it reminds her of the Blue Shingle on that mining colony far away. There’s a stairway at the far back that Jyn assumes leads upstairs to the boarding rooms. Jyn scans the crowded room, trying to find the person she needs to speak to. She can’t very well just barge upstairs and start knocking on doors.

Without any other alternative she makes her way to the bar. It’s too tall for Jyn to lean against comfortably, the edge of the bar cutting into her sternum when she reaches over it to call the bar tender over. 

“What’s your poison?” Asks the Rodian behind the counter. 

“I’m looking for someone. They’re staying here.” Jyn jerks her chin towards the stairs. “Maybe you know them.” Her heart accelerates, pulses in her tongue. A hundred what-ifs go round and round inside her head. _What if he’s gone. What if he’s dead. What if_ — “Fulcrum.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who set a course and cannot adjust their heading  
> will break upon the rocks as surely  
> as those who sail heedless of direction.  
> We cannot change the direction of the wind.  
> Nor can we afford to be blown whichever way it so chooses.  
> We act; we decide; and we are acted upon.  
> So it is in all things that I wish to honor those  
> who have come before.  
> So it is in all things that I wish to prepare the way  
> for those who shall come after.  
> And I remind myself:  
> in the Force, there is no end, but only beginnings."  
> -Oz Ladnod, Poet to the Royal Court of Onderon  
> from Collected Poems, Prayers, and Meditations on the Force, Edited by Kozem Pel, Disciple of the Whills.
> 
>  
> 
> Poem by Greg Rucka, featured in _Guardian of the Whills_


	27. Chapter 27

Jyn doesn’t know what she expects when Cassian opens the door.

A pistol drawn and leveled at her head maybe. Or K-2SO towering over Cassian’s shoulder, his perpetual shadow. She expects to see Cassian as she’d been privy to once, rumpled, unkempt, less than the perfectly collected front he presented to the world.

But the man behind the door is as carefully composed as the man she saw in the Old Shadows, the calm façade firmly in place.

“I didn’t think you’d come.” Cassian says before the door’s latched shut behind Jyn. Jyn keeps her chin level, takes in Cassian’s face, tired and wane as in her worst memories, and still so perfectly pieced together.

“I thought it was better to come to you.” Jyn answers bluntly, “The streets are crawling with imps. Or have you missed it? The city’s been burning all day.” The smell of it is seared into Jyn’s nose, her throat and chest ache from the smoke even thought she covered her face with her scarf.

“Jyn,” Cassian starts and this time Jyn can’t run away. That’s not what she came here to do. But the sound of her name on his lips is like a blaster bolt to the chest, it eats through bone and muscle and lodges inside her, burns her whole.

Cassian’s closer than he was outside the ruined kyber temple, close enough to touch her and the timber of his voice alone makes something in her tremble.

Hope is such a perilous thing, the most dangerous thing Jyn’s encountered.

Jyn shakes her head, tries to clear the smoke and worry and anger she’s carried inside all day. “I’m only here to ask you to take your business elsewhere.” Jyn says as authoritatively as she can. “This place has been through enough, it doesn’t need whatever you’ve got planned.”

Cassian’s eyes harden, his mouth presses into a thin line. “What do you know about my plans?” His mouth twitches, wilts into something that resembles a frown. “You’re really going to try to blame what’s going on out there on me?”

“You expect me to believe this is a coincidence?” Jyn bites back, holding herself firm, “You arrive and suddenly half the messa’s going up in flames.”

Cassian’s shoulders tense, “I’m not the only one on this moon with a score to settle with the Empire.”

“No one was blowing it up before _you_ showed up—”

Cassian laughs, a disbelieving hollow sound. “You can’t be serious—”

Jyn wants to push him, force him away, but the room is so small, barely more than a closest with a narrow cot shoved against the wall. She’d push him straight against the wall if she did lash out, and it’s only the thought of creating a commotion and drawing attention that keeps her hands at her side.

Jyn frowns, her bad temper only intensified by the necessity for restraint. “If memory serves, the Rebellion doesn’t much care who gets caught in the crossfire.”

Jyn’s nails dig into her palms as Cassian shifts, steps back, two miniscule steps but there’s nowhere to go, not really. Jyn stares at his face, tries to find some evidence of damage, wants the satisfaction that comes from striking a well-placed hit, but there’s _nothing_. She wonders, infuriated with him and with herself, how it’s possible to look someone in the eye and feel utterly alone.

“This wasn’t me.” He says, his voice flat, as empty as his face. Jyn remembers all at once every single reason she ever had for hating him. She wants to hold the flame of her rage close, wants to burn out her heart with it until all that remains is the will to reach for her blaster and put a bolt in his head. A life for a life, she thinks bitterly, but there’s no use to it. Jyn knows well enough to know trading one ghost for another will get her nowhere. She looks at him, his drawn face, and hates herself. Even now, the part of her that hates him isn’t greater than the part of her that doesn’t.  

Cassian motions towards the door. “If there’s nothing else.”

Jyn doesn’t need to be told twice. She pauses before she steps out. Because she doesn’t want to kill him, not for herself, not even for Papa, but she knows what she’s capable of if need pushes her. “If I find out you’re involved in any of this, I’ll kill you.”

Cassian doesn’t say anything. He just lets her go.

-

“You’re in a pretty mood.” Denic comments drily somewhere above Jyn’s head as she bangs away at the insides of the rusted old speeder bike. The corroded green and white pant flakes off in pieces as big as Jyn’s hands, speckle her goggles like the smoggy ash that hangs in the air outside.

“Bad night.” Jyn mumbles, yanking her wrench harder than necessary, ramming her own knuckles against the plating on the inside. Even through the thickness of her gloves she can feel the blunt force of the collision, her finger throbbing as she straightens it out.

“Bad day too from the sound of it.” Denic says, her knees coming into view. Jyn wiggles out from under the bike, pulls her goggles down under her chin. Denic isn’t wrong. Her pointless visit the night before has snared something inside her, Jyn’s stomach tight with anger and worry and frustration. She got barely an hour’s worth of sleep, tossing and turning on her bed throughout the night, getting up at odd intervals to watch the troopers march up and down the length of the street through the slates of her shutters. Jyn’s head hurts, her eyes sting, and its hard to say if it’s the result of too little sleep or the smog-filled air hanging over the city. Either way, her mood’s as black as the ash covering the snow treaded to slush outside the garage doors.

“Nothing new.” Jyn says, meeting Denic’s eye. Denic’s eyes are tired, irritated by the smoke in the air, red-rimmed and puffy, her red hair standing up in fly aways and stray pieces that stick out from behind her ears, pale beneath her freckles. She looks a mess.

It brings to life an urge in Jyn she thought long lost, the need to question what Denic is doing here. In this garage. On Jedha. Stealing from troopers and selling it away to the highest bidder.

Baze said she trained to be a pilot at one of the Imperial flight academies on a mid-rim world, which is more information that Jyn’s ever heard from Denic herself. Jyn wants to open her mouth and ask how Denic landed here, what choices she made, wants to tell her about Cassian and the Rebels and her father, lost to time and the Empire. Jyn wonders if Denic would understand, if Jedha has slithered its way under her skin as well, if this place and these people have looped around her insides like a noose and pulled tight. Never to let her go.

“Do you need anything?” Jyn asks instead, swallowing the impulse, burying it under the dark cloud of regret Jyn can’t seem to shake.

What’s one more thing.  

-

“It’s been a full week,” Jyn complains under her breath, shoulders hunched against the cold. Her ancient leather jacket seems less and less effective every day. Jyn is still waiting for the winter to break, knows it’ll be any day now, and wishes fervently it could be _now_. She’s sick of this cold. “What are they still patrolling for?” She adverts her eyes from another pair of troopers headed down the street, keeps her head down and her body small, mindful of Chirrut’s hand at her shoulder. Just a slip of a girl guiding a blind man down the street. _Don’t look, don’t look, don’t pay attention_ , Jyn prays in her heart until the troopers walk by, resists the urge to check over her shoulder. It reminds her of Jericho, of Eadu, trying to remain invisible while trapped in a pit of snakes. 

Chirrut tuts quietly, staff leading the way with soft rhythmic taps. He doesn’t answer Jyn’s question. Jyn thinks they both know there’s no real need for an answer. They turn the corner off the main street into one of the smaller avenues, the buildings on both sides crowded close, one flat roof top nearly connected to the next.

They pass fewer troopers down that way, two soldiers walking in single file, blasters in hand. Jyn and Chirrut have to step aside, press themselves into a doorway in order to let them by and Jyn nearly holds her breath as they walk pass. Chirrut’s fingers dig into her shoulder, a reassurance rather than a warning, and Jyn leads them back onto the narrow walkway after the troopers are more than a few steps away.

“It’s alright.” Chirrut says, and now Jyn falls back, lets Chirrut take the lead as they turn off into an alley. Chirrut has to reposition his bag to get its bulk through and Jyn adjusts her own pack, follows after him.

This time Jyn does look behind her shoulder, hears Chirrut rap against the door of the home three houses into alleyway.

Baze and her have been across the messa to deliver supplies to Kaya and the children in her care, but this is her first time seeing Master Gimm since the night of the bombings. She looks gaunt enveloped inside the folds of her red robes, her hands fragile even as she reaches out to grasp Chirrut’s hand in her own.

“The children have been asking after you.” Master Gimm tells Jyn once they both stepped inside, the warmth in her voice hardly diminished by the respiration unit strapped to her face.

“We’ve brought some supplies.” Jyn answers, removing her pack from her shoulders. She removes a few veg-meat blocks from her backpack while Chirrut unearths what Respitic he could find through his contacts at the Old Market. Jyn can only imagine what they cost him, the food alone took a significant number of credits and the food wasn’t even purchased off market.

 “Thank you Krestel.” Master Gimm says, taking the blocks from Jyn’s hands, and leading them further into the house. Saaja Bhatt keeps a tidy house. Jyn’s only been here once and can’t remember the visit, her memories clouded with pain and blood lost. It’s a small place, sparsely furnished, but warm and clean. She’d been training to be medic a before the Empire had closed all the academies on Jedha and started shipping anyone with potential off world. Now her house operates as an underground clinic for those in need of treatment but without the credits demanded by Imperial clinics.

A clinic and now an orphanage apparently, Jyn thinks to herself as she follows Master Gimm into the nearest doorway in the entry hall.

The children that have remained with Killi Gimm are as somber as the ones who have taken refuge with Kaya Gimm in the Ednards’ home. Nine children squeezed together in the tiny sitting room off the entry way. The stone floor is covered by two rows of improvised bed, folded blankets and the occasional thin pillow. The sight of it reminds Jyn of the barracks back on Kieva and she thinks these children has seen as much war as any soldier under the Rebellion and Empire both. Her throat tightens.

“Krestel!” Comes a high-pitched voice from Jyn’s left. Jyn catches a moment’s glance at Pyrene as the girl heaves herself to her feet, leaving her spot on the floor and launching herself at Jyn, her thin arms wrapping around Jyn’s waist.

“Krestel, you came!” Jyn freezes, unsure of what to do, hands stalled awkwardly midair. Pyrene presses her face against Jyn’s stomach, and Jyn takes a deep breath, exhales, slowly lowers her hands until one arm is wrapped around the girl’s narrow shoulders and one hand rests on the girl’s untidy black hair.

The girl shudders, presses her face more firmly against Jyn’s body, her arms tightening. Jyn scans the room, takes in the other familiar faces. Tycho and Karr and Joma. All of them frightened. All of them so young.

“I’m glad you’re alright.” Jyn says, tongue so thick inside her mouth it comes out as half-mumbled. Pyrene sniffles. Her shoulders shake. Jyn thinks of Mama, stroking her hair after a bad dream.

(“Can you be brave for me, Jyn? Can you be my brave girl?”)

Jyn’s dry eyes sting but no tears come. “Shh,” Jyn shushes Pyrene gently, squeezing her carefully, “You’re alright.”

Jyn wishes she could say something else, tell Pyrene and the other children they’ll be safe now, but she can’t. She knows the Gimms and Chirrut and Baze and, yes, even Jyn, will do anything in their power to keep these children safe. But the galaxy is large and Empire feels even vaster, now more than ever, and there’s so much out of their control. To promise more would come too close to a lie.

-

All the fires have long since been put out but the air is still thick with ash.

“It’s the kriffing mines.” Denic says, blowing her nose loudly. “The Imps have started drilling day and night it seems like.”

Jyn takes a short pull from her water canteen. There’s an oddly metallic taste to the water, has been for days now, and Jyn wonders if its connected to the mining taking place just outside the city limits.

“What are they mining for?” Jyn asks, “I thought they’d cleaned out all the kyber.” That’s what Chirrut and Baze thought at least, the once sacred caves where the Jedi had sought out the crystals for their sabers among the first the Empire decimated when they took control of the moon.

Denic shrugs, “Guess they found more.” She blows her nose again, harder, leaves a thin trail of bright red blood over her upper lip when she pulls the rag away. “Shit.” Denic says, wiping it away, “Looks like we’re all going to be needing respirators soon.” She mumbles, blood streaked over the back of her hand.   

-

“That’s all?” Jyn asks, staring at the two blocks of veg-meat Ne’Za produces. “Last week I got twice as much for this.”

Ne’Za’s mouth is a firm, slim line. Their somber violet eyes meet Jyn’s. “Last week, so did I.” They turn back to the large pot cooking over the low blue flame of the burner behind the counter. “Prices keep climbing like this I’m not going to have any more customers. Imps are hording all the goods coming on world, taking the choice cuts for themselves. Calling it reparations for the supplies lost in the bombings.”

Jyn looks down at the two blocks in front of her, takes them without further argument. Ne’Za’s already giving her the best prices out of all the other vendors in the market. The cold might be lessening but the Empire’s hold is strengthening with each passing day.

This won’t be enough, Jyn thinks to herself, shouldering her pack. “We need to do a supply run.” Jyn says later that day, unpacking her meager offerings at Chirrut and Baze’s home, giving it over for Baze to deliver. Jyn’s frugality these last few years living on Jedha have come in handy these last two weeks, but if things continue this way it won’t be possible to keep providing the Gimm and their children with aid for long.

Baze’s face is hard to read on the best of days, but today it’s inscrutable, devoid of any kind of calm or panic. It’s blank.

“It’s too dangerous.” Baze says at last, moving over to hide the supplies in the kitchen cabinets. “The convoys have more security than ever. It would be nearly impossible to catch them off guard.”

Jyn bites back a harsh exhale. She’d thought Baze would agree with her, had hoped his hatred of the Empire and his concern for the Gimms would allow him to forget the small fact that attacking an Imperial supply drop would be reckless.

“We need to do _something_.” Jyn counters, trailing after Baze. Chirrut is not back yet from wherever he’s spent his day. “If not to get more goods than at least to get more credits.” Even during the worst of times there’s always someone willing to make a profit off the needs of the people around them. They might not be able to get the Gimms what they need but with enough credits they’re bound to find those willing to sell them what’s lacking.

“We’re not thieves.” Baze says, brow furrowing. “I mean, we don’t steal _money_ , Jyn. Imps don’t carry credits, and I’m not taking anything else from the people of NiJedha. And I won’t let you.”

Jyn’s face twists, “I wasn’t suggesting we steal from our neighbors.” She crosses her arms over her chest, a little wounded that Baze would even think her possible of suggesting as much.

Baze rubs at his face with a heavy hand. Jyn studies him, for all that his face is indecipherable to her she can read his weariness in the dejected slump of his shoulders. Something is weighing on him now, Jyn can see it, but Baze is not the type to offer insight into himself. Jyn knows they have that in common.

But with Jedha spread so thin even privacy seems like a luxury. “If you know anyone who’s looking for proper documentation to get off world,” Jyn starts haltingly, picking at the dry skin around the base of her thumb nail. “You can send them to me.”

Baze stares at her hard, and there’s no judgement in his gaze, but Jyn can’t for the life of her figure out what is there for her. Her knows her name, Jyn reminds herself. The Gimms and the children and even Denic call her Krestel Dawn still but in private she is only Jyn to them. She wants to remain Jyn, whatever that means to Baze, especially now that it feels like she doesn’t know what it means to herself.

Baze looks away, reaches into the cabinet and produces a now familiar tin. “Okay.” He says simply, and then offers her a cup of tarine tea. 

-

Putting together scan docs in her tiny room isn’t any better than putting them together in an overlooked store room. If anything, it’s significantly worse. It takes a bit of searching for the proper materials but with Baze’s help Jyn tracks down what she needs, thankful her ancient datapad still has the necessary dataware to do the job. She makes sure to hide all her supplies in the same spot as she does her credits and blaster, under a loose stone at the windowsill.

There aren’t exactly an abundance of customers, but Jyn knows it’ll take time to build a reputation and gain people’s trust. The first few scan docs she forges are for merchants seeking to leave without reporting their wares in order to avoid the higher tariffs. Jyn doesn’t much care what people are doing so long as they pay without trying to haggle her asking price down to nothing. Baze volunteers to run intermission between Jyn and the clients, gives Jyn anonymity she didn’t know she wanted still until she has it. 

Regardless, Jyn’s better off for the credits, has just a little more to contribute to getting the supplies the Gimms and the orphans need.

There’s no shortage on need. While Saaja and the Ednards have opened their homes, there’s still the matter of food, clothing, and medicine. Even now that the bitter chill has left the air, promising a turn in the season, the continual mining churns out endless plumes of smoke, and ash fills the air. There’s no place left on Jedha where the air doesn’t carry the acrid scent of burning, forcing windows to remain shut, doors barred in the hopes of keeping the worst of the pollution outdoors.

Every ounce of Respitic they can get their hands on isn’t enough, Jyn can hear the truth of that fact every single time she visits either of the Gimms. Killi’s cough continues to worsen, though her deposition remains undaunted. But it’s clear the respiration unit isn’t helping her as much as is necessary. Worse still her cough only seems to spread, like embers carried on a breeze until Jyn hears the same hacking cough among the children as well. Tycho’s cough seems to progress the fastest, worsens within a few short weeks until it sounds like a lifelong ailment. Even with the full suit and housebound, his already delicate lungs are only further compromised by the constant smog.

“If we can’t buy what we need we’ll need to steal it. And soon.” Jyn argues one night, sitting on the floor of Chirrut and Baze’s home. She feels like she spends more time here than in her own room nowadays.

Chirrut frowns, pensive but one look at Baze tells her he feels the same. His prior reluctance has worn thin in the face of this hopeless situation.

“Any attack on the Empire will only incur further retaliation.” Chirrut says simply, though his brow furrows, troubled. “It will make the situation worse in the long run.”

“How much longer will any of us have if things continue this way?” Jyn counters, angered by Chirrut’s caution.  She looks to Baze for support, but despite his apparent frustration, he remains quiet.

Jyn does not stay long that night, excusing herself to return to her room after their conversation comes to an abrupt end.

A mild wind blows the entire walk home, heavy with the acrid scent of burning, but Jyn slumps her shoulders close as though she were walking through a storm.

-

It’s Kaya who lets it slip. Nearly a full week after Jyn leaves Chirrut and Baze’s home weighed down by her own frustration and fear.

“Master Malbus says you will be responsible for all our scan docs.” She says causally, half-distracted by the great pot of stew she’s preparing. Jyn doesn’t know what’s in it since Ne’Za didn’t have anything to sell her this week, but Kaya is nothing if not resourceful her mind perpetually bent towards fixing a problem rather than stewing on any one dilemma.

Jyn stops washing the countless dishes piled in the sink, mouth hanging partially open. “What?”

Kaya is still focused on the stew, frowning at the contents of the pot. “If it’s too big an ask, please let me know, but I believe I’ve found someone—one of my former partners from the garage who can help us acquire the necessary—”

Jyn doesn’t quite hear the rest. She nods numbly, assures Kaya that she can do it, speaks as though Baze has already shared the plan with her. She continues to wash dishes. Outside the sun peers down on them with an odd orange glow through the grey smog.

Kaya calls the children for the meal and Baze herds them into the room acting as their main living quarters in the Ednards’ home. Jyn can’t bring herself to look at him, helps distributes bowls of stew, polite declines when one of the children asks if she’s eating with them.

Jyn waits until they’ve both helped with the post meal clean up and looked after some of the younger children while Kaya teaches the older ones their lessons, waits until they’ve said their farewells to bring up her conversation with Kaya.

“Why do the children need scandocs?” She asks as they turn a corner. The sun isn’t high in the sky but it isn’t full dark yet, and Jyn knows that the hot season will be upon them sooner than any of them are ready, no matter how long and harsh this winter’s been.

Baze shakes his head subtly. “Not here.” He says in a low voice. “Come. Have tea.”

Jyn does not want tea. Not tarine or any other but she wants to know, her curiosity and wounded pride prompting her to follow Baze. They’ve hardly been estranged since their not-quite conflict over what they should do, but the tension is still there, like a hum ringing in the ear at odd intervals.

Chirrut is at home when they arrive, sitting cross-legged in one of the corners of the room, his robes folded around him and his eyes closed. He does not greet either of them when they enter, not immediately though Jyn is sure he must have heard them.

Baze isn’t thrown by any of this and Jyn figures it must be a common enough occurrence, follows after Baze until they’ve both standing in the small kitchen corner. Baze, true to his word, does go about the business of brewing tea, his broad back turned to Jyn as he ignites the portable burner, fills the small tea pot with a single scoop of tea leaves from the metal tin Baze removes from the cabinet.

Jyn waits, patience frayed and barely holding together, but if she knows Baze at all she knows railing and shouting won’t get her anywhere. Jyn can no more bully Baze into action than the wind can move a mountain by howling at it.

Chirrut catches her off guard when he calls for her to take a seat. His sightless eyes stare over her shoulder when she sits opposite him and Jyn wonders what he’s pulled from the Force today, if he can feel her unrest in it, if its any different from the hundreds and thousands of lives crowded atop the messa, trying to survive amidst so much strife.

 Baze joins them not long after, bearing the promised tea. Jyn knows better than to let it go to waste, scalds her tongue with her first bitter sip.

“I wanted to tell you about the scan docs myself, little sister. I’m I was not able to do it.” Baze starts. Of all the things Jyn expected from him, an apology was not one of them. She feels taken aback, her anger confused and disfigured by Baze’s sincerity.

Chirrut lifts his own cup of tea and takes a slow sip. Baze still has not touched his. Jyn stares down into her own cup, uncomfortable and inexplicably, scared. She watches the steam lift off the surface of the green-tinted tea in her cup in thin waving wisps.

Chirrut sets his cup down.

Baze draws a deep breath. “Kaya approached us not long ago. Killi’s condition is worsening, and the children—you’ve seen it for yourself.” Jyn nods, eyes still fixed on her tea. Chirrut’s voice catches her by surprise. “They’re going to leave.” He says simply.

Jyn can’t makes sense of the words. “But this is their _home_.” She says, ashamed of how her voice cracks.

Chirrut nods, hands braced over his knees. “It is, and it always will be, but as you said, they cannot expect to survive here long under these conditions. Baze suggested it to the Gimms and they’ve agreed.”

Leaving Jedha. It sounds as impossible as flying. She stares at Baze and Chirrut and feels the yawning depth of her incredulity, opening wider and deeper and darker the longer she sits with the idea. Jyn doesn’t know why, but her mind turns to fantasies of a Jedha devoid of Chirrut and Baze, and it’s like a trying to imagine a building without foundations. They are the city and the deserts, the summer heat and the winter cold, as much a part of this world as the temple ruins and the kyber buried deep beneath the earth.

She can’t imagine a Jedha without them.

Jyn can imagine herself without them. It’s too easy a picture to conjure.

(Jyn knows all about being alone.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive y'all! And this story continues! I finally had to throw in the towel and admit to myself this chapter was going to be two chapters and just post the first half rather than keep drawing it out into the mammoth it's turned into. Next half is mostly written so hopefully there will be another chapter this month. 
> 
> <3


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